Maurizio Sarri believes Aaron Ramsey and Adrien Rabiot are starting to show improvement but the Juve manager wasn’t happy with the teams performance against Parma.
Juventus have taken a four point lead at the top of the table but struggled to make it safe during their slender 2-1 victory over Parma yesterday.
“There were some hiccups along the way, but in general we were doing well this season, ” Sarri told Sky Sport Italia.
“We had the chances to close the game today and didn’t take them, so naturally Parma started to cause us problems towards the end because it was still open,
“I saw players who were tired after the Coppa on Wednesday and had to change things. I wanted to send a signal to my team and balance things out again with Douglas Costa, because it was still open.
“Adrien Rabiot and Ramsey arrived from very different leagues, had a lot of fitness problems in these first few months and haven’t been training as much as they wanted to, but both lads are improving as the season goes on.
“We can improve in the way we read the game, especially in the final stages, as I do not like us passing it around in our own half. As I tell my players, I’d prefer to concede on the counter rather than sit there under pressure for 10-15 minutes. If we have the chance to close the game, we have to take it.
“We had improved on defending from set plays, but tonight we conceded against one of the specialists in this scenario. It’s about staying alert and making the interception before the ball gets there.
“Ronaldo? You have a world class player who might cause you a few problems every now and then, but can also resolve 100 of them. So you have to take him into account and work around his characteristics.”