Dusan Vlahovic sealed the win late on to send Juventus into the semi-final of the Coppa Italia after beating Sassuolo 2-1 on the night.

The Old Lady couldn’t have wished for a brighter start after taking the lead after less than three minutes of action, but what followed was far from positive.

We endured one-way traffic after our early goal, with the Neroverdi piling the pressure on as they looked to get back into the tie, and they did manage to level the score when Hamed Traore used his pace to break forward, before dribbling into our area and getting his shot away into the far corner.

Thankfully we did manage to wake up soon after that, and managed to carve out our own chances to get back in front, but unfortunately Dusan Vlahovic failed to get a clean contact when given a great opportunity on the edge of the box.

We came out in the second-half much more positive, and while Sassuolo were still fighting, we did look to be turning the screw more and more as time went on.

We brought on Morata for De Sciglio in an attacking move, dropping Cuadrado in at right-back where he can be as equally effective in defence and attack, and we continued to knock on that door, but it took until the death for us to finally clinch the victory, and we may even have to consider it to have been a little fortunate.

Dusan Vlahovic used his amazing strength and balance to beat the defender and work his way into the box before his shot deflects off the defender and past the goalkeeper into the near-side of the goal pretty much on the 90-minute mark.

It certainly wasn’t our finest performance, especially in the opening half-hour of play, despite Paulo Dybala remaining a nuisance to our rivals at every given opportunity, and it showed that we are still lacking that balance in midfield that we need to find.

We will now take on Vlahovic’s former side Fiorentina for a place in the final of the competition after their win in Atalanta earlier on today.

Will the 4-3-3 formation we have been using of late take time to gel or can we expect some more struggles this term?

Patrick