Juve-Fiorentina, Allegri: “Now target for seventh place. And on the trident…”

“The goal we have set ourselves is to reach the teams in front one at a time. Now the goal is to win back Turin and Udinese with 30 points, in the next match we have to reach 32. Knowing that we are at 29 but the boys have done so far 44, which is different stuff. It’s a situation that makes you grow.” Massimiliano Allegri’s policy of small steps is experiencing a second consecutive step with Juventus’ hard-won victory over Fiorentina after the one five days earlier in Salerno: “After the ruling after the match in Naples, with Atalanta we have I had a good reaction and then with Monza the undertow brought us back. But we mustn’t confuse the current standings with the points we’ve scored, we’d be second in the standings”.

FIORENTINA AND CUP

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The Juventus coach publicly defended some of his men from boos from the crowd, and said about the match: “It was a good match, fought: I’m very happy with the lads, up front we had chances and did good deeds with speed, with favorable situations. In the final, Fiorentina was coming forward to try to tie the match after we weren’t able to make it 2-0: in the midst of confusion, you need a lot of attention, the boys defended well”. His mind is already on Thursday’s Europa League with Nantes: “As we failed to move on to the Champions League, the Europa League is a goal. As is the Coppa Italia and reaching those in front, then let’s see where we’ll be at the end of the championship “After the Europa League we have to continue in the league, but I think there’s a good spirit. It’s not an easy time to re-establish our objectives: ours is to go back up, we’re one point behind seventh place and it’s a good result.”

THE TRIDENT

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At the center of attention was the chemistry in front of Chiesa and Di Maria together with Vlahovic: “We started with Chiesa on the left and Di Maria on the right, on the right we had a numerical superiority with Biraghi who always remained between the two, then when Amrabat I started following Di Maria, I put Chiesa to attack them from behind. In fact, from there came the goal cross and other favorable situations. Federico needs to learn to play more in the middle of the pitch but tonight he made himself available to the team. And Di Maria also sacrificed a lot tonight in the defensive phase”. Allegri is cautious about the future of this solution: “It’s not a question of tridents, at Milan we played with four attackers and even here at Juve one year we didn’t even have full-backs. There’s also team balance, Juventus with only Mandzukic and Dybala up front, three full backs and five true defenders. The season isn’t all the same, there are times when the team can sustain certain set-ups for thirty or sixty minutes: it depends. Tonight the boys were good.”