Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri apologized for his team’s performance against Chelsea in the Champions League last Tuesday and called for an improvement before a key month in the ‘bianconeri’ season.
Allegri’s return to date has been disappointing, as Juve are eighth in the standings after 13 games, 11 points behind leaders Napoli.
In addition, they conceded a painful 4-0 against Chelsea in the Champions League, the biggest defeat in all competitions since 4-0 against Roma in Serie A in February 2004.
“We regret the defeat in London, we are Juventus and it is never good to make a bad impression,” Allegri said this Friday before the clash against Atalanta.
“The team played a good first half, the game was balanced until the 55th minute. Maybe we had a better first half than the Turin game (when they beat Chelsea 1-0). We melted after their second goal,” he added .
“Atalanta is a physical team, they score a lot of goals, but they concede so many, so we need a good game in attack and defense. We have to be clinical,” Allegri warned.
Juve started the season badly and are trying to get back on track. Allegri, however, thinks further.
“Tomorrow is an important game, but not decisive, we have an important month ahead of us. The next six games are crucial,” he commented.
“The problem is that we did not get good results against the smaller clubs. The guys were a bit sad after the defeat in London, but yesterday they trained very well.”
“We need a general path to improve the individual players and the team. We cannot look back, we need to get to March in good shape, a new season will start in March,” he stressed.