Juventus 1-1 Inter Milan
Tevez 5 (J), Icardi 64 (I)
Serie A – Week 17 [6th January – 20:00 GMT] – Juventus Stadium
Yet again Juventus started off a game in dominating fashion only to finish the 90 minutes with a disappointing result. It happened against Sampdoria, it happened against Napoli in the SuperCoppa, and it happened in a Derby d’Italia two years ago when Inter beat Juventus at Juventus Stadium. While I am not necessarily worried about this continuing too far into the future (although Juventus next play Napoli) it is a frustrating trend.
Today, Juventus were by far the better team for the first 45 minutes. Within two minutes, Claudio Marchisio had already had an effort on goal, and two minutes later Arturo Vidal beat Gary Medel in Inter’s box before sliding the ball over to Carlos Tevez who scored Juve’s first goal.
Vidal and Tevez, like the entire side, were very effective in the first half but then faded in the second half. Vidal had one of his best performances of the year for the first 45 minutes. Meanwhile Tevez was his usual hardworking self, wreaking havoc in attack and midfield. Unfortunately Tevez can only carry the team for so long, and as happens on occasion he was less and less involved over the length of the game.
At times this was a very exciting match. There were plenty of series of end to end action. In the first half this tended to happen more from an Inter pass being intercepted – no pun intended. The interception often led to a Juventus counter attack, it was a large reason why Juventus dominated in the first half.
In the second half Inter’s attacks became more threatening, and for some time it seemed they had Juventus on the ropes. In the 63rd minute, a dangerous Inter counterattack occurred. Juve’s defense was entirely unprepared, with Giorgio Chiellini and Patrice Evra missing in action. Meanwhile, Leonardo Bonucci was failing to properly mark Mauro Icardi, who was able to receive the ball and then outpace Bonucci for a clean shot on goal, which he of course finished for Inter’s lone goal. It was enough to get a draw for his side.
One bright spot for Juventus was Paul Pogba. It seemed as Vidal started to be less effective, Pogba flourished. He had several dangerous runs with the ball, and on many occasions he dribbled around an opposition player. Unfortunately, the team lacked a killer instinct in attack today so these ventures all ended up without too much danger for Inter.
Part of that was due to the fine play of Samir Handanovic, who was just as important for this result as Mauro Icardi was. Handanovic stopped point blank shots, dangerous Andrea Pirlo free kicks, and powerful Vidal efforts from distance. Whatever Juve threw at him, he (mostly) saved. Similarly, Gianluigi Buffon had a fine evening. In the last 15 minutes of the game he stopped several dangerous Inter chances. He saved a strong Icardi shot in the 82nd minute and then in the 91st minute he came off his line to dispossess Lukas Podolski who was on a breakaway.
Inter will be very satisfied with this result, but Juventus will be rightfully upset. The team now leads Roma by only one point in the Serie A table, and a tough match versus Napoli comes up next week. Hopefully the team will decide to break out of their mild form and avenge the SuperCoppa loss to Napoli.
Statistics
Man of the Match: Arturo Vidal
Flop of the Match: Fernando Llorente
Fouls: 10
Corners: 11
Pass Accuracy: 80%
Shots on Target: 5
Total Shots: 11
Ball Possession: 52%
Formation: 4-3-1-2
Formation:
Lineups:
Juventus: Buffon; Lichtsteiner, Bonucci, Chiellini, Evra; Marchisio, Pirlo, Pogba; Vidal (Pereyra 77); Tevez, Llorente (Morata 63)
Inter: Handanovic; Campagnaro, Ranocchia, Juan Jesus, D’Ambrosio; Guarin, Medel, Kuzmanovic (Podolski 54); Kovacic, Hernanes (Osvaldo 85); Icardi (M’Vila 89)
Ref: Banti
Sent off: Kovacic 86 (I)
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Pogba started off poor but once he got into the rhythm of things, he dominated inter. he still needs to work on his close range finishing. He has done it against lazio but with his dribbling abilities, he could really be a difference maker with good finishing. He shot straight at the keeper vs sassuolo and we dropped points there. same thing happened today.
Pogba should try to chip the ball …
yea he would score a lot more if he would just scoop the ball up instead of trying to hit it on the ground
Ok, the “play one good half per game” fiasco got annoying a season ago. WTf is going on? We arent winng anything this season if this continues. It wont be Allegris fault either because this load of sh*t has been going on since Contes 2nd season.
Roma are eager to win the scudetto and if our players think for one second that anyone in europe will cut us some slack, then keep dreaming on because itll be long before we win the Cl with these rubbish performances.
Could it be covering for Pirlo and Llorente has become exsausting? I read that Tevez was beat at 2nd half and well our midfield has to work extra hard, defensively, to cover for Pirlo.
Juve tries to control the game, to play more economically, they suck at it, every teams does btw, there is only one way, ATTACK
This
I agree. Pirlo adds defensively less to the game than Padoin does, and that’s not cool. He has good passes every now and then, but he never attempts a tackle, never sprints back, he is just jogging there, people just run past him.
Juve should have won this game. This tie is especially upsetting considering how difficult it will be to win at San Paolo. May be Lazio can beat Roma, who knows.
Very disappointing result. I don’t know if it’s the players or Allegri but I can’t stand watching the team score early in many games and then stop pushing. Past few games when the opponent equalizes I can think to myself it was only a matter of time…Not a good thing. Hopefully this gets everybody fired up but then again that should have happened after the loss in the supercoppa.
Allegri is a fan of controlling the game, Juventus is not 🙁 big mismatch
Wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it did end as a draw.
I would like to see at least one new defender in January, and not just some mediocre guy, but someone who can make Bonucci and Chiellini work for their place in the starting line up.
If our bench can’t give them competition, and we lack players to replace them every now and then, they won’t perform as well as they could. The same goes for anybody in the team. Players like Padoin or Pereyra will never challenge Vidal, Marchisio, Pogba for a starting spot. Top clubs have impressive benches too, if one of their starters are unavailable or in a bad form, they have people to step in. We don’t.
The board won’t end up buying more defenders, were stacked with them
Actually Buffon saved the day, by making some grate saves … he is extraordinary
i wonder if allegri will choose to play caceres as a cb. before injury, caceres was one of our best defenders and he has the pace that our defense lacks
For now, i would play him at Lb and have Obgonna at Cb.
I think the time has come for pirlo not to be a starter every game 🙁
He cannot defend for shit and if he were to go, Marchisio would go into the regista role (defending better and he can pass too) vidal would go back into centre mid (where he’s more effective) and we could play an actual trequarista in the hole.
I think even Pereyra would be better as a trequarista
If we were to go this way, I’d rather have a world class game changer as a trequartista, too bad that would cost money…
Exactly, or go 4-3-3 with some decent wingers, but again that will cost even more money haha
I think if we sign Sneijder, he’ll play where Vidal does, Vidal drops into Marchisio’s role, Marchisio replaces Pirlo, and Pirlo gets to make more wine at weekends.
Sniejder has agreed a move to juve by the sounds of it – Seems the deal is going ahead: https://www.juvefc.com/wesley-sneijder-agrees-juventus-move/