Tough times

TOUGH TIMES



So for the second time in three games we lost, this time to Juventus. For some uncanny reason the injuries and loss of form which hit the squad at the beginning of the season at this same juncture of the fixture list has hit again; the only problem being that we have a very important Champions League game coming up and Juventus are showing no signs of slowing down; meaning we could very well find ourselves out of everything by the end of February.

The team is in a real tight spot here and we just have to stay calm and hope for the lucky break. After we play Juventus in the latter parts of this month, the schedule would ease up a bit and we still know how to win those games. Allegri certainly implied that in his post game comments.

"It’s not a favourable or a positive moment for us but we have to stay calm because we still have the second leg to play. We have to get a few players back to give the players who are on the pitch every match a breather In the second half during a positive period we slipped up on three of four balls that we should have done better on but all in all the team did well today but we have to avoid these mistakes that are costing us so much.

At the moment, we’re losing steam, we need more intensity and to play deeper and that’s something we have to work on. These are the players that I have available and they’re all doing well but we have to be more careful about the mistakes that we’re making. We knew that Juventus could hurt us on the counter attacks, just as we knew it against Udinese so we had to be more careful than we were. I put on Maxi Lopez to have an extra striker up front. El Shaarawy did well. Tomorrow we’ll see about Nesta’s condition.”

For now, the critical thing is to get to March still hanging in there, when we should get most of the squad back. As for fans always laying into Allegri whenever we lose a game, he has a team down to bare bones now.

We travel to Udine this weekend, with no Ibra, no van Bommel, and a group of 18-20 players who have played every three days for about a month now. Exhaustion is a real factor, and the fast, counter attacking game of Udinese is likely to sting. I'd advise preparing for another result you are not going to like...




moonbyte