Yahoo Sports Thiago Motta: ‘Not the result Juventus wanted’
Thiago Motta admits the 0-0 draw with Empoli is ‘not the result we wanted,’ but remains confident Juventus are continuing to build ahead of the Champions League clash with PSG.
The Bianconeri had the perfect start to the season with back-to-back victories over Como and Verona, but although their defence remains rock solid, problems are emerging in attack.
They were held to a 0-0 draw by Roma before the break for international duty and faced a similar outcome at the Stadio Castellani with still unbeaten Empoli.
More was expected this evening, especially considering there were the first starts for summer signings Teun Koopmeiners, Nico Gonzalez, Douglas Luiz and Pierre Kalulu, but 70 per cent possession did not translate into results.
“Keeping a clean sheet was thanks to the whole team, so creating in attack has to be the job of the whole team,” Thiago Motta told DAZN.
“We did a bit better in the second half, trying to move it wide and force our opponents back. We had the chances to take the lead, clearly a draw is not what we wanted and the result is not what we aimed for, but it was a decent performance and we must keep growing.”
This is only the fifth time that Juventus have kept a clean sheet in each of their opening four Serie A matches, after 2014-15, 1986-87, 1983-84 and 1965-66.
Thiago Motta analyses Juventus struggles
Kenan Yildiz was in a much wider role than he had been earlier in the season, allowing Koopmeiners to play as a trequartista with Nico Gonzalez on the other flank for Juventus in a 4-2-3-1.
“By playing wide against a team that has five at the back, we need to spread them out. He has physical strength and dribbling skills, sometimes it went our way, sometimes it didn’t. It is never easy to open up a five-man defence,” continued the coach.
Dusan Vlahovic seemed to be frustrated and irritated, something that Max Allegri had already worked on in recent years at Juventus.
“We need to serve Vlahovic both with crosses and through balls, because he is good in the air, he can do both. I agree he is improving a lot in that sense, but strikers do live for goals. He gives us so much other than goals and he needs to exclusively focus on playing for the team, doing his job and helping the squad.”
There was some controversy during the closing stages when Pietro Pellegri and Federico Gatti went face-to-face during an argument off the ball, the Empoli striker aiming a slight headbutt, but the referee considered a yellow card to be sufficient.
Juventus are back in the Champions League and it is the first European fixture for Thiago Motta as a coach.
As luck would have it, he was paired first up with his former club Paris Saint-Germain.
“It is a source of pride for all of us to play in such an important match. We leave today’s game behind in the past, take the positives and have to focus on facing PSG. They are accustomed to dominating domestically and have players of great quality. I expect a balanced match, we want to take the ball off them and control the initiative to create those chances.”
