Massimiliano Allegri threw down a gauntlet, only for his rivals to pick it up and slap him in the face with it. “Try taking five starters away from Inter or Milan,” said the Juventus manager last month as he sought to defend his team’s slow start to the Serie A season by gesturing at an extensive injury list. “Then let’s see if they run into difficulty.”
Milan did indeed look diminished as they travelled to Stamford Bridge last week without Mike Maignan, Theo Hernández, Davide Calabria, Simon Kjær, Alexis Saelemaekers and Junior Messias – not to mention long-term absentee Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Chelsea made light work of a decimated defence on their way to a 3-0 Champions League win.
Hernández was back in the lineup for Saturday’s game against Juventus, but the rest remained out of action. It looked like an opportunity for Allegri’s team to build on the momentum they had claimed with back-to-back wins – and six goals scored – against Bologna and Maccabi Haifa. A chance for the manager to prove his point.
Juventus started well, carving out a few half-chances and finding some forward thrust through Juan Cuadrado on the right. But after the Colombian had a shot blocked by Sandro Tonali in the 21st minute, his team could not muster another attempt on goal for the next 50. Milan scored twice in-between.
Fikayo Tomori struck first, crashing the ball home after accidentally blocking a shot from teammate Olivier Giroud at a corner, claiming a small slice of redemption after his humbling return to the Bridge. This has been a difficult season so far for the Englishman, who has struggled to match the standards he set last term, but on Saturday he excelled at both ends of the pitch.
Juventus lined up in a 4-4-2 with Dusan Vlahovic and Arkadiusz Milik up front: a €70m striker accompanied by another who was averaging a goal every 78 minutes. Accompanying Tomori at centre-back for Milan was Matteo Gabbia, a 22-year-old with six starts last season. One of those was a 4-3 defeat by Fiorentina, in which Vlahovic – still playing for the Viola back then – scored twice.
The Serbian never even got as close as attempting a shot for Juventus on Saturday, instead providing the assist for Milan’s second goal. With Tomori assailing his every touch, Vlahovic was flustered into a loose pass across the middle of the pitch. Brahim Díaz intercepted, ran 50 yards and beat Wojciech Szczesny at his near post.
If Vlahovic chose poorly then he did not deserve to carry the blame all by himself. Milik, the target for the pass, was leaden-footed in reacting to it and Leonardo Bonucci allowed Díaz to breeze past when even a foul would have served his team better. It was a goal that embodied the worst nature of this Juventus side who play with an air of passivity all over the pitch.
A manager who won five consecutive Serie A titles and reached two Champions League finals during his previous stint at Juventus can feel entitled to believe he knows better than his critics but Allegri’s persistence with rigid lines and low blocks has certainly earned him a few. As one Gazzetta dello Sport journalist wrote in their analysis of Saturday’s game: “A 4-4-2 without overlapping full-backs is as credible as a tiramisù without mascarpone.”
After nine games, Juventus are already 10 points off the pace atop Serie A. They have failed to win any of their first four away matches for the second time in the club’s top-flight history, and face an uphill struggle to make it out of their Champions League group, despite beating Maccabi, after losing their opening two matches against Paris Saint-Germain and Benfica.
