Juventus snatched all three points and a place in the knockout rounds of the Champions League with Alvaro Morata’s injury time winner against Ferencvaros.
Juve were forced field a makeshift defence this evening, with Merih Demiral, Leo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini all ruled out.
Alex Sandro made his first start of the season, while Danilo was given more defensive duties, but it was definitely not the ideal preparation.
This may well have been the reasoning behind our early struggles, as the team didn’t seem assured in possession, and after the initial 15 minutes the game was a little too even.
Our early lack of cohesion and confidence saw our side punished, with Ferencvaros scoring one of the scrappiest goals in recent history, with the forward gaining little control of the ball in possession, before he found his teammate with a deflected cross, to poke home.
The Old Lady didn’t take long to use that early wake-up call to come alive.
Shortly after the goal, it was very-much one-way traffic, with the Hungarian side seemingly allowing us to push forward.
They defended in numbers for the remainder of the half, but that man Cristiano Ronaldo is not one that can be denied at the moment.
The Portuguese picks up the ball outside the box in space, and takes little time to fire his rocket past the keeper at pace.
We went into the break level, but with the impetus on attack, and you just wanted to get out there and keep it going.
We carried on with control after the interval, while our opponents kept things tight, and it was getting quite frustrating, but then our opponents decided they was going to go for it.
The manager opted to make some attacking changes and go for all three points, and Andrea Pirlo did the same.
We continued in search of the winner, and it was that man Juan Cuadrado who did the hard work to set substitute Alvaro Morata up for the winner in injury time.
Juventus fans will have been very frustrated with the performance, but the fact that the players had the will to fight till the last second is vital for a season, and while we will not be boasting about the performance, that is a positive note to leave on.
Should Ferencvaros feel hard done-by after a strong defensive performance? Does the result paper over the cracks for Juve?
Patrick
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