Juventus 1-0 Sassuolo
Scorers: Pogba 83 (J)
Serie A – Week 26 [Monday, 9th March – 19:45 GMT] – Juventus Stadium
Paul Pogba’s late goal gave Juventus a 1-0 win over Sassuolo and an 11 point lead at the top of the Serie A table
The Bianconeri had a week to forget which included a 2-1 Coppa Italia semi-final defeat to Fiorentina, their first loss at the Juve Stadium in almost 2 years.
Gigi Buffon missed the game after suffering from a bout of flu while Andrea Pirlo, Martin Caceres, Kwadwo Asamoah and Romulo all sat out through injury.
Juve started the brighter, pushing forward despite Sassuolo’s early high pressing and Claudio Marchisio and Carlos Tevez both fired their efforts over the bar. Tevez tried from distance but Consigli was on hand to beat away his effort.
Leonardo Bonucci made a poorly timed back-pass leaving Carlos Tevez to take one for the team by denying Simone Zaza a chance on goal. Sansone stepped up to take the free-kick but his effort ended up in Marco Storari’s arms.
Juve were disappointing as the half drew to a close as Alvaro Morata shot across the face of goal leading the Juventus supporters to jeer at the half-time whistle.
The team looked more lively in the early portion of the second half and Paul Pogba has his effort tipped around the post by Consigli before Tevez’ half-volley went inches wide. Consigli performed a great save on Bonucci’s volley from distance while Fernando Llorente spun and shot straight at the Sassuolo keeper.
Juve looked to be running out of ideas before Pogba stepped up with seven minutes left on the clock. Simone Pepe surged forward and set up the Frenchman who blasted a half-colley from outside the box.
With the result sealed, Max Allegri gave Andrea Barzagli his season debut after 8 months out through injury.
Statistics:
Man of the Match: Patrice Evra
Flop of the Match: Roberto Pereyra
Fouls: 21
Corners: 13
Pass Accuracy: 82%
Shots on Target: 4
Total Shots: 16
Ball Possession: 63%
Formation: 4-3-1-2
Formation:
Lineups:
Juventus: Storari; Lichtsteiner, Bonucci, Chiellini, Evra; Vidal, Marchisio, Pogba; Pereyra (Pepe 63); Tevez (Barzagli 87), Morata (Llorente 63)
Sassuolo: Consigli; Vrsaljko, Acerbi, Peluso, Longhi; Brighi (Chibsah 79), Magnanelli, Missiroli (Lazarevic 84); Berardi, Zaza, Sansone (Taider 72)Ref: Peruzzo
Poll:
[socialpoll id=”2257407″]
Juve!!!! Pepepepepepepepepepe!!!
Should Serie A be reduced to 18 teams or not according to you guys? (Starting a bit of a conversation here :p)
Also, damn Bayern crushed that poor Shakhtar and I have to admit I had some fun when I saw Chelsea crashed out at home to 10 man PSG
20 teams is better for the league imo. All big leagues except Bundesliga (which is the healthiest of all probably, so yeah maybe that’s a point) have 20 teams. So i’m kinda in the middle i guess. Why do you ask?
Some fun? PSG deserved this so damn much. Ibra and PSG were screwed over mutliple times, the red card was arguable, Diego Costa should have been send off later on for an even harder and meaner tackle, PSG played nice football all game long, Chelsea didn’t do shit, Cavani was unlucky when he should have scored. And a little note to Juve, if the red card suspension goes through, they will miss Ibra and Verratti in the next match.
Just bringing up the topic since it’s being discussed in Italy, mainly to help the national team though. I wonder what the pro’s/contra’s are for the league.
Didn’t see the game so can’t really make an opinion on the refs decisions. But have to say I won’t miss Mourinho’s tactics too much
Even Mourinho himself said Zlatan shouldn’t be suspended.
Well yes but only to pass the suspension to Luiz or Silva, I forgot which one 😛
I wouldn’t mind the league reduced to 18 teams. Playing less games would make for better rested players. And really, those relegation zone teams we hardly even play well against just cause the team doesn’t worry about them. I loved Chelsea getting kicked out. I liked PSG since the Pauleta days, it’s nice to see them win lol.
Kinda what I thought too, on a sportive level you don’t miss out on too much, but I doubt it’s a good thing to do financially, less games is less money right?
I was just amazed PSG managed to overcome that early red card and falling behind twice
Thiago Silva, Verratti, Thiago Motta, Cavani, Ibrahimovic, Pastore, Lavezzi.
Players in PSG’s team who came from Serie A. I’m not including Sirigu because we still have Buffon and we have upcoming talents, but if we would do or would be able to do what Bayern, Barca and Real do in their leagues, we could have added killers like these guys to our team. Thiago Silva and Thiago Motta are probably not needed since we have Chiellini, Bonucci, Vidal, Pogba, Pirlo, Pereyra. I know money plays a big role in the transfers of these players, but some of them should have come to us instead of the money. I always really enjoyed watching Pastore play for example when he was at Palermo and while watching yesterdays match i realised how good he can be.
I think by now, Serie A and Ligue 1 are on par. Paris is an exciting city full of youth. Torino, I imagine is not quite the same. We have history, yes, but those guys have just as good a chance of winning the CL at PSG as they would with us. Their window to make as much money as they can isn’t that big. It no longer bothers me that these guys chose the money.
Some of them can really make us better. Thats what bothers me. Seeing the league become weaker after talents like them leave bothers me too.
Right now they have a bigger chance of winning the CL at PSG than at Juve. PSG is playing well, while we are still struggling alot.
Ligue 1 is not on par with Serie A though. They have just PSG. Monaco are making a good run right now, but that wont stay. We have Juve, Napoli, Fiorentina doing well, Roma if they are in form, even Inter is doing well.
Inter can thank their back up goalkeeper for what happened today. He looked poorly 3 times and it caused them 3 goals against. Palacio is a moron too. Could have easily passed for an almost certain goal.
de bruyne is a beast. 18mil was a steal for him
Yeah he’s an awesome player, I don’t get why he was sent away from Chelsea at all. I hope he can get better than Wolfsburg though, he deserves it. And on that topic, I don’t think Serie A football would fit him.
Wolfsburg deserves more credit though. 2nd in the Bundesliga, defeated Bayern with 4-1 (what other team can say this in the last couple years?), the only team in Germany this year to actually get close to Bayern, doing well in the EL. They have great players and if they can keep them they might take Dortmund’s spot as top German team (or just add one team).
Why didn’t they use Handanovic, is he injured or something? He better be, fielding a second rate goalie in Europe is just not done if you’re serious about it
I hope injured. Not for him, but for Inter. Like you say, it can’t be accepted if they use a 2nd gk like that in EL. It will add to my hate for them if they are the only Italian team this year to not take the EL serious.