Maurizio Sarri believes Juventus were patient in their 2-1 win over Lokomotiv Moscow and the players didn’t lose their heads, despite going a goal down.

The Bianconeri were behind for much of the match but Paulo Dybala was on hand to turn their game in their favour, right at the death.

“I think we did very well not to lose our heads, as we kept patient and moved the ball. We felt it was always obvious the game could be turned around, but the real anxiety was we could get panicked. We had 28 shots on goal.

“I told the lads we shattered Champions League records on possession. The risk was to smash face-first into the wall repeatedly and then get irritable, but we kept our heads.

“We had the feeling later on that Lokomotiv no longer had the legs to counter, so I took the risk and put on Higuain as well as Adrien Rabiot with Rodrigo Bentancur.

“Unfortunately, our system tends to make us push more through the centre. In the second half, we tried to move more down the right, as when Paulo is a trequartista, he leans towards the right, so we often get a bit too one-sided. We’re working on that.

“I don’t think we got the wrong approach at all. We were just a little slow and kept the tempo slow throughout the first half, as we weren’t very sharp physically more than psychologically. We are playing every three days and a lull can happen.

“Lokomotiv in the first half went slow, then fast, whereas we were just slow throughout. The good news is that we were sharp mentally, as without that, we wouldn’t have kept our heads to unpick the lock.”

[Translation from Football Italia]