Sarri: 'Juve make too many mistakes'

By Football Italia staff

Maurizio Sarri insists Juventus must “concentrate on how to improve ourselves” rather than neutralise Cagliari, while discussing midfield options.

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“We’ve been working in training on the many errors that we’ve made recently, so before trying to work out how to neutralise Cagliari, we concentrated more on how to improve ourselves,” said the coach in his press conference.

“We’re coming off a game where we got a lot wrong mentally even before the tactical issues. The defence gets the blame when conceding a goal, but I think they’ve not been protected well by the midfield.”

Juve ended 2019 with a defeat, losing 3-1 to Lazio in the Supercoppa Italiana in Riyadh, raising questions over the use of the trident with Paulo Dybala, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuain.

“We’ll see tomorrow, there’s also Aaron Ramsey available who is now in good shape. It’s a game where we will need to pay a great deal of attention behind the ball.

“Dybala only worked separately in training yesterday because he had a slight muscular issue, but nothing serious. Douglas Costa is always an option, although we need to take time to get him back into shape after a serious injury.

“Matthijs de Ligt had shoulder and adductor problems, so it was a difficult spell for him, especially after playing so much. Merih Demiral was in good form, so we had the opportunity to rest De Ligt. I’ll decide tomorrow who starts.”

Sami Khedira and Giorgio Chiellini are injured, with Rodrigo Bentancur starting a three-match ban after his red card in the Supercoppa.

“At this moment, we are trying Adrien Rabiot on the right side of midfield, while Emre Can could play central midfield or on the right. We’ve also started working on Federico Bernardeschi over the last few days.

“Rabiot seems ok physically and has been improving, but he still gives off the impression of someone who can do more.”

Juventus have already made their first purchase of the 2020-21 season, paying €35m plus bonuses for Dejan Kulusevski from Atalanta, although he’ll remain on loan at Parma.

“He is an interesting figure,” said Sarri. “Transfers are not by area, but evidently the conditions could not be met to bring him in straight away. The most important thing is that the club always gets there first for these young talents.”

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