Last night, Juventus and Torino traded blows in an entertaining Derby della Mole. When the dust settled, it was the Old Lady who prevailed on the back of a solid second half.
At 2-2, the match was still hanging in the balance, but thankfully for Max Allegri, he was able to introduce a couple of super-subs, giving his side the edge. Of course, we’re talking about Federico Chiesa and the returning Paul Pogba who made his first appearance this season.
In the aftermath, the manager insisted that the Champions League remains an achievable objective despite the point deduction while explaining his triple change.
“We’re ten points behind the fourth place, which is still a lot,” admitted Allegri in his post-match interview as reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“If in the next 14 matches, we keep an average of 2 points per game then we’ll reach 73 points, which could mean a Champions League spot.
“The lads played a really good game against a difficult team to face. We must also say that on the field we collected 50 points, not to say 52 [referring to the two points lost against Salernitana due to a scandalous VAR decision].
“At that moment there was a need for fresh players with different characteristics. Removing Angel Di Maria is always difficult, but we needed fresh legs.
“I placed Rabiot in front of the defense in place of Barrenechea who had a great game. We must continue in this spirit, if we continue like this we can get good results, otherwise, we’ll go back to the early season chaos.”
Allegri also revealed some of his tactical maneuvers during the match, while reserving special praise for Nicolò Fagioli who enjoyed a superb second half.
“At one point I put Rabiot in front of the defense because there was a need for physicality, then he improved in the development of the game but he needs to improve in getting the ball from one side to the other.
“Paul did fairly well in midfield. The same goes for Chiesa. Fagioli did a superlative second half in terms of quantity.”
