This weekend, Juventus are hoping to end the current skid with an away win at the Renato Dall’Ara.
The Bianconeri suffered recent setbacks against Napoli in Serie A and Inter in the Coppa Italia, while their hosts Bologna have been one of the main dark horses of the current Serie A campaign.
On Saturday, Max Allegri held his pre-match conference, and explained how his men must approach Sunday’s contest.
The manager admits that his team is on a poor run of results, and he believes that hard work is the best solution.
“We’re having a poor run with five defeats in our last six games. Tomorrow offers us a chance to turn things around,” said Allegri in his press conference as published by the club’s official website.
“However, tomorrow is going to be very difficult, Thiago Motta is doing an excellent job at Bologna, so we have to play with high attention.
“There are 35 important days ahead of us, so we need to work hard and make them count. We need a reaction.
“The aim was to get to this point of the season, March and April, still in contention on all fronts, and we achieved this.
“We have the Europa League final in our sights. A club like ours has to be in the Champions League next year, also for financial reasons, so we must finish in the top four in Serie A, if possible taking second place, which would be an improvement on last season.”
The gaffer says that Paul Pogba and Federico Chiesa still need time to regain their best conditions following their long layoffs.
“We’re not on top form, which is natural when you have players returning from lengthy layoffs. [Federico] Chiesa is an extraordinary player who is coming back after a long time out.
“[Paul] Pogba is in the same boat, he’s not yet back to his best. I would like to have the Pogba I coached in my first spell here but right now it’s not like that.
“The upside of the misfortune of having players like Pogba, Chiesa, also Vlahovic injured, thanks to the work of the club over the past ten years, there are so many players, like [Matias] Soulé, [Nicolò] Fagioli, [Fabio] Miretti, [Samuel] Iling, who have come through and clocked up a lot of playing time.”
The Juventus boss disregarded all rumors and speculations regarding his future. Instead, he calls for his troops to work hard and prove their doubters wrong on the pitch.
“There’s always a lot of speculation surrounding Juventus. The only thing for us to do is stop talking and work hard.
“The difficult period is now, not when we were deducted 15 points, and I’m not just talking about the team. We all need to be united, rock-solid.
“I knew when I came back here that it would have been easy to win right away. We lost both finals last year and this year we’ve brought through a number of youngsters.
“It always depends from what perspective you assess the season. We do our best to overcome the challenges in life, for us this means getting back to winning ways.”
