Juventus v Fiorentina SERIE A PREVIEW

By tdf, March 9, 2014

Our form has been below par since the match in Verona. No surprise given we lost both Barzagli and Chiellini…Caceres and Ogbonna have been okay, the results have kept coming, but we have been massively more porous with Buffon busier than for many moons. The game against Milan last week was decided by Buffon and Tevez. Defensively we were very poor and often over-worked, in midfield we lost the ball too often. I felt sorry for Clarence and his troops! Not too sorry…especially when Carlitos scored that world class strike from range. Then I felt more pride than anything else.

I am still nowhere near convinced of Caceres as one of 3 CBs. Positionally he seems haphazard. On the flank, I have often found him brilliant, but centrally he seems less comfortable, or we seem less comfortable. Barzagli was clearly lacking match sharpness last weekend, hopefully he will be better adjusted for this match.

As for our form, I could go back perhaps to the coppa defeat to Roma as a turning point for the worse. We had momentum prior to that game. The loss, albeit with a second string squad, seemed to derail our momentum. Our draw in Rome was loosely commendable, victory over Inter was the one real highlight, other than which, whilst we have been getting the results, we have not recaptured the form prior to the coppa loss. The momentum has not been recovered. I could point to the second europa tie in Turkey, but Trabzonspor were shocking, they made Giovinco seem like Messi…which NEVER happens in Serie A.

Still, the truly great teams win regularly without hitting top gear. With the defence slowly coming back together, Claudio easing nicely into the regista role in Pirlo’s absence, Vidal back in the line-up and Tevez in exquisite form, there are many reasons to be cheerful and my hope is that our slump has been negotiated and its time to put our foot back on the throttle, pick up speed for the run-in towards the scudetto and hopefully our first european trophy under Conte.

Our opponents, like us, have not been playing particularly well of late, the difference there is that they don’t win when they don’t perform. We do. One win in their last five, 3 losses…they appear, at least on paper, lambs to the slaughter.

Often, when a team has crunched us, Conte goes all out to destroy them the next time we meet. I trust this will be the case this evening…

Forza Juve