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[Bagg10]

Playing Parma away is always tough for us. It was pretty boring game mainly because they played 11 men behind the ball. But the most important thing is that we got the 3 points.

We do miss Lichtsteiner, but even more importantly (at least against Parma) we missed Llorente(or Vooch) holding the ball up. Giovinco and Tevez both like to run at defenses, and they're both relatively small, although Tevez is kind of stocky. I'm not sure the two of them can/should play together in a 2 man forward line. I think they'd work a lot better in a very attack-minded 4-3-3 with the two of them supporting Llorente/Vooch/Quags. But obviously that's not a realistic formation for Conte. It probably just came down to the decision to give Llorente a rest added to the fact that Vooch is injured and that Quags just came off injury that he decided to have Giovinco and Tevez partner up. So you cant really blame Conte there, and expect that we wont see the two partner each other up front too often this season.

I thought Chiellini had a decent match as well. While Ogbonna looked a little insecure.

[red]

Yeah, I think it has been well established that playing without anything resembling a genuine centre forward is pretty damaging for Juve's play.

Suggestion is that it's back to 4-3-3 for the Real Madrid game.

Same team as played in Madrid, but with Bonucci taking Chiellini's spot.

[Bagg10]

Really should've won yesterday, but Kopenhagen win means a draw was an ok result. Technically we can draw the next two games and still go through, if Real wins their remaining two games. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, though.

I thought Caceres was the mom, even though his backpass led to Real's equalizer. Imo Barzagli was as much, if not more at fault for that goal because he completely forgot about Ronaldo and drifted to the middle towards a player Bonucci already had marked.

We didn't really look interested in pressing Real too much when they had possession, especially towards the end of the game. We were trying to hit them on the counter but Llorente is too slow, and Tevez and Marchisio were positioned too far wide for a quick lay off.

It was kind of frustrating not to get more out all the opportunities we had in the first half, and I think it came to bite us in the ass in the end.

[red]

There's no way you can say a player who made as big a mistake as Caceres did can be MotM, or that Barzagli's error was even comparable.

Caceres also cocked up for the second goal: he was ball watching and let Ronaldo run off him, which turned a normal, controlled situation into a dangerous three v three.

[Bagg10]

Counting + and -'s, Caceres had far more +'s than anyone else on the team that night, unfortunately his mistakes cost us/were more evident.

Pogba, Tevez, Llorente, and Vidal are just lucky those stupid ass back-flicks they kept trying never turned into decisive counterattacks...

Also on that second goal, no matter how the ball got to Bale, there's no way Asamoah should be letting Bale cut in and take a shot with his preferred left foot. You cant blame Caceres for that, even if you can blame him for ball-watching.

[red]

I'm not trying to pin anything like the entire blame on Caceres for the second goal.

Baffles me how poor an effort players make when facing an extremly one-footed player to force them onto their weaker side.

[red]

Some good stuff from Juve tonight, but Napoli could hardly have made it easier for them in the first half.

I thought Napoli's 4-2-3-1 would provide a really awkward tactical match-up for Juve, but that didn't prove to be the case. Napoli were clearly painfully aware of how weak their backline looked on paper and so they felt they had to pull the wingers a long way back with Juve's wing backs and that largely solved the problem for Juve of how to deal with Napoli's system.

Napoli also played an extraordinarily passive first half hour. I don't know to what extent they played to drop off and cede territory and possession to Juve and how much of it was due to being knocked back by the early goal. I can't imagine Benitez wanted to allow Juve within 25 yards of the Napoli goal before any pressure was put on the ball. Giving Juve so much time on the ball was suicidal because, as much as they tried to drop off and protect it, Napoli's defence was not able to cope, so the only real surprise was that Juve only scored once in the first half hour. Since Napoli weren't going to be able to deal with Juve's attacking players, they really needed to put pressure on the ball higher up the pitch and limit Juve's ability to attack.

Gradually Napoli did get into the game towards the end of the half and then showed the sort of intensity and aggression at the start of the second half that they'd needed from the off. However, because Juve had the lead, Juve didn't need to make any effort to get the wing backs high up the pitch or play much in deep areas, so it was tough for Napoli to win the ball back in situations that gave them the opportunity to attack quickly. Only area that tended to look dangerous at all was when Armero got high up and Insigne drifted inside, but even that rarely looked like really penetrating the Juve defence.

Napoli were also seriously disadvantaged by one of the most irritating forms of bias referees show towards big teams - and I say this having watched Aberdeen suffer it on numerous occasions. Every single time Napoli pressed Juve in the second half, the referee would give Juve a freekick. Most of them were for minimal contact and some of the calls were just plain wrong. Anyway, this rendered Napoli's pressing fairly ineffective and it meant the game remained bitty enough for it to be tough for Napoli to build up any really momentum and made it relatively easy for Juve to control things. It becomes incredibly frustrating when you are the victim of it and you know that, while it is having a major impact on the game, it is never going to be picked up in the way a single big decision in favour of the big team would be.

Anyway, could have been a really interesting game if Napoli had backed themselves to play to their strengths from the start, rather than fearing their own weaknesses so much and depriving themselves of the ability to hurt Juve.

[juventino_italiano]

Quite a bit of bias from the referee that no technology could have caught on to.
Llorente's goal was technically offside, but to be honest, i'd blame that goal more on Napoli's terrible defending during that play. Llorente was scrapping with a Napoli defender to get loose and no other napoli player made any attempt to clear a slow rolling ball.

Red you're absolutely right. Juve played a good game and both teams were expected to come out strong, but it looked as if only Juve came out to play at all for parts of the match. Napoli looked horrible.

[RomaShield27]

Napoli – or should I say Benitez's teams – always do seem to start very negatively in tough away games. It was the very same scenario against Arsenal in the CL, they started very slow and deep and lacklustre and allowed Arsewipe to attack them, and their defence just couldn't cope. I don't know why Benitez does it. You could see from the second-half that Napoli are able to play good football and out play Juve – although they were happy to sit back – so I don't see why they don't do it from the off.

And fair play Red for admitting your side are drug-taking bribe queens. Seriously, the ref was horrible. The offside goal i can sort of understand, it was a very close call, but every bit of a tackle or pressing from Napoli and it was a free. It was like it was a non-contact game. It was ridiculous.

Higuain also should have had a penalty – by the rules – instead of being called for fouling Ogbonna, even though the latter was clearly doing the fouling.

I even had a debate on twitter with some delusional Juve fan claiming that Ogbonna's red card was harsh, more so the first yellow were he blocked Reina from taking a quick kick-out, which is a yellow.

[juventino_italiano]

[Bagg10]

[DCGweez]

[red]

Fairly indifferent showing from Juve and probably one of the first games where the value of having more clinical strikers this season has really been apparent.

Juve looked lethergic in the first half and didn't move the ball quickly enough to trouble Livorno. Juve also, primarily from those stupid corners to the edge of the box, contrived to allow Livorno some very good counter-attacking chances that a better side would probably have done more with. With Llorente in the team, I still think Juve should be putting more crosses into the box - even from quite deep - when they don't look capable of really opening a team up and even more so when it is Padoin playing on the right rather than Lichtsteiner, as he isn't going to provide the same penetration, but is a decent crosser.

Livorno tried to be a little more aggressive in the second half and that meant the game opened up a little and Juve were able to get into some better positions, but they still didn't create anything prior to the first goal.

Was probably a rather useful game for Juve to have played Vidal in defence, due to the defending being almost entirely against counter attacks and in disorganised situations - something Vidal may well be better at dealing with than Bonucci.

[Bagg10]

I didn't see the game, so I can't really comment on it, but it seems like the team is starting to gel together as a unit. Our defense is also doing much better, picking up its fifth clean sheet in a row. I still want to see if Conte plans on playing the 4-3-3 more often when Pepe comes back, because I think him and Tevez on the wings would work really well for us; OR it's just a tactic he's willing to use against the big clubs like Real, Bayern, etc, that use some variation of the 4-3-3, be it 4-3-2-1, 4-2-3-1... However It looks like he's going to go with the 3-5-2 for tomorrow's must-win game against Copenhagen.The longer it takes us to score a goal in that game, the harder it's going to be for us. We also need to be careful on set pieces.

[red]

Some very good stuff in that Juve performance.

Moved the ball well, movement off the ball was good and they always had good control over the game.

Thought there were possibly times when Juve showed Copenhagen a little too much respect and could have been more aggressive in trying to win the ball back higher up the pitch rather than just falling back into position in their own half, but it was still pretty controlled and Juve never looked like conceding from open play.

Clear plan to push Pogba and Asamoah very high up the pitch to try and get two on one against the right back on long diagonals from Pirlo and that worked very well - notably on the third goal where Asamoah's movement inside created a huge space for Pogba to cross from.

That's the first game I've seen where Juve have actually used Llorente as a true target man - lots of balls being played up to his head and chest and plenty balls being played to his feet - and that game showed just how good he can be. When Juve signed him, I wasn't sure he'd score a lot of goals, but I was confident his general ability was good enough to allow him to make a big contribution even when he wasn't playing well. As the game went on, Copenhagen tried to get more and more players around him to stop him being so influential, but they still couldn't stop him and it also created more space for others. Now that he has demonstrated his ability to do that (and against a fairly physical pair of centre halves) Juve need to be willing to play long to him more often and get a midfielder as well as Tevez close to him for the lay-offs.

Only critiscism - and it's a pretty big one - would be of the pathetic defending of those long throws. Now, it's awkward to clear the ball properly with the first header because there isn't the pace on the ball their typically is from a cross, but Juve still should have done a lot better. If you've got big guys like Chiellini, Bonucci, Pogba and Llorente in your team, you've got to expect to win most of the first balls and to manage to head them to reasonably safe areas. In the end Juve were pretty lucky to only concede one from high balls that went into the box.

[red]

Well that was crap.

I appreciate Juve were tired, but that just means you have to play more intelligently, especially against a team as dangerous on the break as Udinese.

Juve played a good opening 20 minutes, where they were moving the ball well and quickly and getting into a lot of dangerous situations, but failing to find the final ball or making a bad decision or - most of the time - trying something overly complicated instead of having a shot.

Then Udinese started to get to grips with the game. Got tighter to Llorente and closed up the gap between defence and midfield and the gap down the inside-left channel that Marchisio was operating in. Pirlo going off also really hurt Juve's ability to move the ball forward into dangerous areas.

In the second half it became apparent how poor Juve's physical condition was and they should have adjusted to that. You can continue to attack, but you have to be more careful about maintaining a balance to the team to avoid over-committing. Juve kept on brainlessly throwing themselves forward, despite not looking like getting a goal, and all that did was present Udinese with counter-attacking chances. If you are going to keep the wing backs so high up the pitch (and also have Chiellini driving forward a lot), surely you've got to keep a second midfielder behind the ball so that you can prevent counter-attacks and also improve your chance of retaining the ball and being able to build pressure.

Once it got to the final 10 minutes it was fine to keep pushing forward because Udinese were also tired by then and it was just a question of who had the desire and determination to get the result and, for all the stupidity in the performance, you certainly can't fault Juve's desire to win.

There are very few Juve players who you could say had a positive influence on the game. Some weren't harmful, but few made a positive contribution.

[p_maldini_3]

i've never seen somebody do a 1-2 pass-to-shot with their head. llorente's goal was brilliant.

[Bagg10]

Monday December 2 2013
Pirlo has knee ligament damage
By Football Italia staff

Juventus will be without Andrea Pirlo for the rest of 2013, as he has damaged knee ligaments.

The midfielder limped off just 15 minutes into Sunday’s 1-0 win over Udinese in Turin.

Tests have now confirmed a second degree lesion to the collateral medial ligament in his right knee.

The Juve medics have not stated how long he will be out for, but an injury of this type usually requires at least a month to heal, possibly two.

It is a heavy blow for the Bianconeri, who are top of the Serie A table and need a point away to Galatasaray in order to qualify for the Champions League knockouts.

http://www.football-italia.net/42395/pi ... ent-damage

[Bagg10]

We're gonna need to sign 1 or 2 CM's in January...

[DCGweez]

Juve have been fined for the taunts the children directed at Udinese Goalkeeper.

Stay classy.

In other news Vidal Extended.

Morratta, "The extension of the champion Vidal virtually insures the Scudetto is ours, well that and the fact that we've paid refs not to give Roma any deserved penalties this year."