Spalletti: ‘Juventus embarrassing at times, but my vision is 4-2-3-1’

Luciano Spalletti admits Juventus were ‘at times embarrassing’ against Pafos in the first half, but explains his vision for the 4-2-3-1 formation going forward in the Champions League.

The Bianconeri were jeered off the field at half-time, as Cypriots Pafos has the better chances and repeatedly threatened to take the lead.

It was only after more tactical changes and the introduction of Francisco Conceicao for Edon Zhegrova that Juve began to push harder, finally breaking the deadlock on 67 minutes with Weston McKennie on an Andrea Cambiaso assist.

Just six minutes later, as the substitution was already being prepared for him, Jonathan David added a second to finish a well-worked team move.

“It was fundamental to get the win, so with a victory many things look better,” Spalletti told Sky Sport Italia.

“Analysing the match, of course we need to do more, we are not happy, the lads are not happy with themselves, at times we did the bare minimum. Some situations in the first half were frankly embarrassing.

“We relaxed a little after the break and were calmer on the ball in making those decisions.”

The second half was visibly different to the first, also when Lois Openda came on to provide more attacking options, so is this the way forward?

“It also depends on the opponents. I wanted to make some changes in the first half too, but was worried about making things more confusing for the players. It is something we had tried in training, so it worked very well, we were more organised, more determined too to take home the win.

“These are difficult fixtures, Pafos conceded very few goals other than against Bayern Munich, you could see they have quality.”

Pafos did create numerous scoring opportunities in the first half, even going so far as to hit the base of the upright and force Michele Di Gregorio saves.

“We did some things too in the first half,” noted Spalletti.

“It’s true we are having some difficulties defending, but clearly we need to get a right-footed centre-back available again, because Kalulu ought to be a full-back, and Weston is filling in at the moment. Cambiaso too is a very attacking players, but if he needs to defend against muscular runners, he has some difficulties, as his strengths are going forward.

“It’s true we allowed Pafos too much in the first half. We also made some cheap errors, sometimes it is incredible seeing the mistakes made, realising that our players cannot take advantage of those situations, but this is where we’re at right now.”

This result is the second consecutive Champions League victory for Juventus, and gives Spalletti hope of progressing into the play-offs, as they have nine points from six games.

Spalletti was criticised for not changing enough since Igor Tudor was fired, considering it has now been over a month.

“My thoughts on the players do not change. So far, we’ve done too little compared to what I expect. At the same time, we returned from Naples at 5am, the day after that we went into a training retreat for the next game, so we barely get any time on the training pitch,” explained the coach.

“We worked on free kick positioning today, but there’s no intensity or tempo, it’s not possible with this schedule. I was blamed the other day for taking Yildiz off, but I did it again today because I hope to get him a little bit fresher for the next game. It’s those final 20 minutes that the players really feel in their muscles the next day.

“It does make a difference, I promise you. Also, those who haven’t played as much need time on the field. Miretti can do more, Adzic is a good player with quality, but you can see when he comes on for 20 minutes that there are things we need to adjust to bring him up to level. After that, I am convinced we’ll see something different, but until then, progress is slow, it’s true.”

Spalletti is trying to find the right identity for his team, but it was put to him by the Sky Sport Italia crew that he needed to choose a tactical system and stick to it.

“That is fair, I hope to get there when I have a central defender who can play with his right foot, otherwise it’s too limiting for us to play out from the back only down the left. We’ve also got two makeshift full-backs, but I do want to develop this 4-2-3-1 formation in future,” concluded the coach.