Juventus coach Max Allegri believes his players lost their heads following the team’s 4-2 defeat to Sassuolo. It was a first defeat of the season for the Bianconeri, who laboured through much of the game before the result was finally sealed by a bizarre Federico Gatti own-goal.
Speaking with the press after the match, Allegri talked about the need to maintain the team’s mentality, insisting they can;t get too down heartened after this first loss of the season:
“Let’s talk about the game. It was the first defeat, we must learn from it. We were not phenomenal before this game, just as we are not awful after it.
“We had our heads in the clouds with the butterflies, it had started well and there were some fairly simple situations we didn’t make the most of. We conceded at their first attempt and rather lost our heads, so we paid for that.
“I’ve had a few games in my career, I know the strengths and weaknesses of Serie A teams. This was just the final chapter, I already had warning signs over the last few days that we tried to attenuate.
“Now we mustn’t get downhearted, there is an important match coming up and we must try to get three points.”
“This was a match where we were lacking in terms of mentality. We are still not able to switch during the game, to stay in it at every moment. I already had the sensation that we were panicking a little whenever the ball was put into the box, which had not happened against Lazio or the other games, so that had me on alert.”
“He needs to improve, he didn’t make the most of a few chances, but he also struggled with his fitness over the last few days. It was not a great performance from the whole team, it was very unbalanced and turned into an end to end match, in which anything can happen.”
