Luciano Spalletti admits Juventus’ defeat to Sassuolo last week left doubts in the Bianconeri’s ranks and he was delighted to see them put those feelings to rest by beating Atalanta.
Juventus suffered its first defeat in Serie A in the fourth round, losing 3-2 to Sassuolo in stoppage time, allowing Vasilij Adzic to score the winning goal.
However, they bounced back with a 2-0 win over Atalanta and their former manager Maurizio Sarri on Sunday, with goals from Francesco Conceicao and Bremer.
Juventus have now won three of their first five games of the Serie A season and have kept a clean sheet in every win for the first time since 2017-18, when they won the league title under Massimiliano Allegri.
With the three-week international break just around the corner, Spalletti is relieved to see his side shake off the negativity that characterized their previous Serie A campaign.
He told Sky Sport Italia: “There was a moment when we were forced to defend and then we had to make some changes and from that point on we got back on track and played on an equal footing in the second half.
“We can certainly get better as our actions start and build up. We could do more damage to Atalanta.
“But it doesn’t matter because the loss to Sassuolo gives us some doubts.”
Financial Times | |Three key points to pay attention to during the international match day! @EASPORTSFC #juventusatalanta pic.twitter.com/FW24lYXJmd
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Spalletti also singled out Randall Kolo Mouani for praise, having criticized his performance last month, despite the Frenchman missing a great one-on-one chance and posting an expected goals (xG) of 0.35, the highest in the competition.
“He played a very good game. When he came one-on-one with the goalkeeper, I was disappointed because he should have scored,” Spalletti said of Kolo Muani.
“But in the end he was still happy, we joked about it. We are all happy because now we can get back some strong players who have been useful to us recently.”
Juve were seventh with 10 points before the break, while Atalanta were four points behind in 11th.
Sarri, who won the Serie A title in his only season in charge of Juventus in 2019-20, has now lost nine games against the Bianconeri in Serie A, the most he has lost against any club, including Roma.
Although La Dea have now lost three games in a row, Sarri insists there is no crisis brewing in Bergamo.
“I don’t think so, the first three games were at a lower level but we’ve been improving,” he said.
“This team needs more character to light the fire in the soul. This is a team with certain abilities and we need to exploit them.”