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[red]

Juve can't play catenaccio because they don't have enough players who know how to mark properly and they don't have anyone to play sweeper.

They can 'park the bus', of course, but they can't play real catenaccio.

[Zoff82]

Is that another Matri nay-sayer ?? How can this be? Maro claims he's great so Ill just have to take hos word for it. It seems he's willing to rub it in when Matrix scores a goal but 10 goals out of 26 rounds is hardly worth 15 mil.

[juventino_italiano]

Di Vaio has constantly made Bonucci his bitch throughout the match

[morra10]

Still clueless as to why Elia isn't given a chance. It's not like Vucinic works hard defensively. We're struggling to create chances right now.

Can't believe Marchisio missed that rebound. Him not scoring is what we've missed in the second half of the season.

[Zoff82]

Is it safe to say Bonucci is the new janitor of Torino? Can we call this guy a bust and move on? He's terrible week in and week out. This team hasn't suffered any embarrassing losses but these ties are even worse

[morra10]

Kind of curious to see who Conte's gonna start at CB this weekend without Chiellini, Bonucci, and Barzagli.

[juventino_italiano]

[Bagg10]

The defending part he was pretty good, except for a few bad passes out of the back. Lichtsteiner was the one who fucked up and kept Di Vaio on side.

[RomaShield27]

Fun fact: first opposition team to ever win at the Juventus Stadium: Roma Primavera .

[morra10]

Ya, I thought he did very well at CB. When Barzagli and Chiellini come back hopefully he'll get more playing time while Bonucci sits on the bench.

[juventino_italiano]

[Zoff82]

Bonucci needs to go, Ranocchia is/was no better. I know we were comparing when the transfer happened but in the long run these two will amount to be average. Is there any more dominant defenders in Serie A? If someone says Chiellini Ill die laughing.

[Bagg10]

A lot of people have been praising Ogbonna lately....

[Bagg10]

Friday March 9 2012

Missing Marchisio and Pepe
While Juventus’ strikers come under fire, Antonio Labbate looks at the disappearance of goals from two other sources as a possible reason for their recent problems.

The coffee rocket is on the stove and the sound of a radio can be heard in the background. The roaring of boiling espresso dies down just in time to catch the thoughts of a caller to the talk show on air. “Antonio Conte has yet to understand that when he picks Mirko Vucinic, Juventus will always play with 10 against 12.” That was the morning of Bologna-Juventus.

The Montenegrin scored in the re-arranged fixture that same day, but it wasn’t enough to silence his critics or dispel fears over Juventus’ problems in attack. His languid style continued to infuriate, as well as mask his qualities, while strike partner Marco Borriello did very little to suggest that he will be signed outright in the summer once his loan deal from Roma expires.

Coach Conte has chopped and changed his forwards in recent weeks, with the arguably under-used Fabio Quagliarella and Alessandro Matri in and then out of the side. The only constant has been the lack of opportunity given to veteran tender Alex The Waterboy in his final season at the club.

A shortage of goals from the forward department is clearly an issue for the Old Lady, a quick glance at the numbers illustrates that. Matri has 10 in 23 League games, but Borriello, Quagliarella, The Waterboy and Vucinic have only scored six goals between them from a combined 55 appearances. Those are worrying statistics for a side – now without goal-shy Amauri – who are hunting down a Scudetto.

Yet those figures have been a constant throughout the campaign and not just during Juventus’ recent bout of drawitis. What has changed over the last two months are the lack of crucially important goals from Claudio Marchisio and Simone Pepe.

Given that Juventus don’t have a tin opener such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic or the inspiration of a younger The Waterboy, they have got to where they are this season thanks to a team ethic which is borne out of self-sacrifice in the greater interests of the Old Lady. But as the tiring term has worn on, Conte’s decision to base his first team on a relatively small select group of players may have had an adverse effect on Marchisio and Pepe in particular.

The central midfielder was in the form of his life at the start of the campaign. His early displays suggested that this could be the season of his consecration, where promise had been transformed into consistent classy performances. Pepe, who’s had his injury problems recently, seemed revitalised too after a pretty mediocre first year in Turin.

In total, the pair have contributed 11 goals in Serie A this term. Marchisio’s six strikes in five separate games delivered five victories, while four wins have come from Pepe’s five net-ripplers. The problem for Juve is that Marchisio last scored on December 4 against Cesena and the Roman on December 18 against Novara. Since that game against their Piedmont rivals, Conte’s men have won just four and drawn seven in Serie A.

It has been tough to watch Marchisio struggle in recent weeks, while Juventus have clearly missed the contribution of Pepe – especially his link-up play with the diminishing contribution of Stephan Lichtsteiner.

The return to 4-3-3 will undoubtedly benefit the latter pair, but it seems clear that if the Turin giants do have serious ambitions of ending the campaign as Campioni d’Italia, then it won’t just be Vucinic and his striking colleagues who will have to start finding the net again.

http://www.football-italia.net/node/16483

[juventino_italiano]

[morra10]

If Torino get promoted there's no chance they're going to sell Ogbonna to us. They'll sell him anywhere but Juve. Plus, I'm pretty sure I remember him making a comment in the past about not being interested in joining Juve.

[Zoff82]

That's about it. Na na na, hey hey hey, good byeeeee. Juve blew a golden opportunity to win the scudetto. That's about it and now its gonna be a nail-biter for 3rd place from here on. Napoli is collecting results while Juve lost momentum 3 months ago. They are in danger of throwing away the season in what could be one of the biggest chokes in sports.

[morra10]

Looks like the scudetto race is almost over. Can't really be upset with the way we played today, we just got really unlucky. 3 posts in a matter of 15 minutes, a goal called back, and a number of other great chances. We just couldn't finish the chances we created. I can understand these types of games because they do happen. We lost this season a couple weeks ago, now hopefully we don't drop anymore spots.

[Zoff82]

In any other season I wouldn't even say that's the case morra at -4 points with 10 games to go. Milan are playing great and getting results while Juve are doing the complete opposite. Sure you need a little luck but Juve just aren't putting themselves in position. After today's game, it just isn't meant to be.

[p_maldini_3]

don't worry about ogbonna going to inter, he'll be coming to milan instead. he looks the real deal though.

and your management needs to stop bitching about the refs and just get on with it, conte should start playing with elia too.