Following Juventus’ 1-0 away victory against Fiorentina at the Stadio Franchi in the Coppa Italia Semi Finals, Allegri spoke to Sportsmediaset in an interview regarding the Bianconeri’s display this evening:
“We have to congratulate Fiorentina on a good performance. We suffered with two counter-attacks in the first half, again in the second, and fortunately we didn’t concede because they made mistakes.
“The team then held out well, we ran very few risks and we had some favorable situations where we should’ve played a better final ball, then Cuadrado went for goal rather than the pass and we could’ve scored there.
“Winning in Florence is not easy, the team showed maturity, because this is a difficult match, we were missing a lot of players and Marley Ake worked hard.
“Defensively, we did well, because apart from those counter-attacks, we allowed very little. We made mistakes with the final ball, Cuadrado made up for that earlier mistake by putting the ball into the box at the end and that created the goal.
“It was a good performance from everyone, we are down to the bare bones at the moment. Fortunately, Dybala, Bernardeschi and Rugani will be back tomorrow and we’ll have a few fresh legs.”
Moreover, the Italian tactician spoke about the individual performances of central midfielder Arthur Melo and talisman Dusan Vlahovic:
“Arthur was out for the first part of the season, he has quality, but needs to give the ball away a bit quicker. He is so comfortable on the ball that he relaxes a little too much.
“I liked the way we were organized today and only ran risks on counter-attacks. We knew Fiorentina liked to overlap on the flanks and put crosses in, so there wouldn’t be a threat through the centre. We should’ve kept the ball in their half more, but I saw progress.”
“Vlahovic is very good at playing with the team, we have more of a link now between the midfielders and forwards, so that too is progress. It’s important to move around and be more unpredictable, as the simplest and toughest thing in football is to avoid marking.”
Finally, the gaffer spoke about whether he considers the Bianconeri still alive within the title race despite only being behind the league-leaders Napoli by a seven-point gap:
“Absolutely convinced. The Scudetto will be 84-85 points, definitely. We’d have to win them all, which is very tough, but I think with the fixture list at least one of those three teams can reach 84 points. Ask them how many points they need for the Scudetto, not me!”