Juventus have claimed all three points against a resilient Spezia side, but there was little to call home about.

The Old Lady started the match brightly, retaining possession well and taking our time in the build up, and our rivals seemed happy to sit back and soak up the pressure.

Thiago Motta’s defence was sticking to their job well, but after stealing the ball back as the visitors looked to push forwards we hit them on the counter, and Locatelli’s ball forward was flicked into the path of Alvaro Morata by Dusan Vlahovic, and the Spaniard took his effort first time to place it out of the keeper’s reach.

The next real chance of the game came after the break, with some neat trickery in the final third carving out space to cause problems, but Wojciech was more than equal to the eventual headed effort.

The away side got the bit between their teeth as the game ran on, with our side failing to really threaten at the pther end of the pitch, but you could tell that Spezia’s players were getting frustrated with their hard work not paying off, with the game getting a little rough.

Spezia did have another big chance with 10 minutes left to play, forcing Sczcesny into a big save to his bottom left. It became a bit of a circus shortly after however, with fouls, pressure from the players on the referee on a penalty shout, which he doesn’t award even after consulting VAR, and a succession of fouls from both sides.

We held onto all three points however, despite a lacklustre performance, but we retain our push up the table as we move six points clear of Atalanta and within five points of Inter Milan on top.

Patrick