Juventus have claimed all three points against Lazio this evening, but we barely got out of second gear.
The home side got us underway, but this game certainly took some time to get going. In fact, the biggest talking point of the opening 20 minutes was seeing Danilo on the wrong end of a 50-50, with the Brazilian having to be replaced with injury.
While Lazio were enjoying much of the possession, they were proving extremely wasteful in the final third, but the opportunity to score came as a slight surprise. VAR asked the referee to check for a foul on Alvaro Morata in the penalty area, and concluded that a penalty was to be given.
Leo Bonucci stepped up and made no mistake in putting our side ahead mid-way through the opening half, which pretty much summed up all the excitement from the entire opening 45 minutes.
The new half started much brighter however, with Dejan Kulusevksi dribbling his way past the defenders to carve out a shooting opportunity, but Reina managed to get down to block his well-placed effort. Leo Bonucci then came close with his effort shortly after, before former Chelsea and Barcelona winger Pedro had his own effort denied at the other end.
Unfortunately things did slow down after that, although with the 1-0 lead there was little to complain about on that front, but with 10 minutes left to go, Pepe Reina was caught out. The goalkeeper came rushing out, only for Federico Chiesa to slip in behind him, before the goalkeeper stupidly flies in to foul the Italy superstar inside the box. Again, Bonucci steps up to make it pay.
Other than both managers picking up a yellow each on the sidelines after the 90th minute, there was little else of substance to tell you after that. It certainly wasn’t a tale of the tape, but once again our sturdy defence and calm endeavour got us over the line to seal the result, and we proved that we can hold onto a lead.
We definitely want to see more from the team in the coming weeks, with ground to make up on our rivals in the table, but winning ugly is needed at times, and with some injury issues, the 2-0 result isn’t something to complain about.
Patrick
