Max Allegri’s Juventus side lost their first match since agreeing a deal to allow Cristiano Ronaldo to re-join Manchester United this week, which of course led to questions on his absence.

The Portuguese was claimed to have asked not to start our opening league match of the term against Udinese last week before coming off the bench and being denied the winning goal thanks to VAR.

We then played our first home match of the season last night against Empoli, and once again failed to win, but this time we were downed 1-0, and journalists naturally questioned if the two were related.

When asked if his side missed Cristiano Ronaldo during today’s matchup, Allegri replied(via Juventus.com): “He scored lots of goals here but we can’t be thinking about him anymore. We have an excellent squad with great technical and personal qualities and they can only get better.”

Ronaldo’s departure has likely disrupted our preparation slightly for the fixture, whilst a lot of the attention has surrounded CR7 this week, but there is little excuse for losing with the squad that we have.

His absence should not have affected the result in any shape or form, but our players simply were not good enough on the night.

Patrick