Hellas Verona 2: Initial reaction and random observations

Heading into the final weekend of January, I sat here and wrote about how Juventus had enjoyed quite the pleasantly surprising runs that we’ve seen from them of Max Allegri’s second stint in charge. They were winning, they were scoring goals galore and they were racking up shutouts and they were putting serious heat on league leaders Inter Milan so much that they were spending a short time actually atop the table.

All of three weeks and four games later, Juve haven’t just fallen out of the Scudetto race and essentially handed the title to Inter, but come crashing back down to earth in the kind of fashion that you really have no idea where this team is going all of the sudden.

The latest confirmation of that came Saturday evening at the Bentegodi in Verona, as Juve had to fight back twice from being a goal down to get a point against Hellas Verona in a 2-2 draw. Sure, they scored their first two goals in the month of February, but it was another stark reminder that things are not right and that struggling against another relegation battler means that Juventus’ season has gone from Scudetto push to simply trying to hold on for dear life as the distance between where they are and those outside of the top four suddenly becomes smaller and smaller.

Yes, Juve were punching above their weight for much of the season, and getting into February with legitimate heat on Inter atop the table is something that they should be proud of because they were giving the clear-cut best team in Italy — it’s gross to even type that, by the way — a run for their money. Since that final game of January, though ...

• Draw to Empoli
• Loss to Inter
• Loss to Udinese
• Draw to Hellas Verona

That’s all of two points collected in four games. Three of those opponents are ones that are actively trying to avoid getting relegated to Serie B a few months from now. And yet, they didn’t beat any of them. Not a single one. That’s something they avoided from taking place for much of the first half of the 2023-24 season, but as great as the first four weeks of the new year was, the same can’t be said about this second month of 2024.

It’s tiresome. It’s been tiresome. It’s only getting more tiresome as we watch Juventus’ advantage over Milan in third place shrinking to the slimmest of margins and run the risk of fully going away 24 hours from now. These types of results happened under multiple managers, but only exaggerated under Allegri for the simple notion that he was supposed to be the agent that made things better when compared to a rookie manager like Andrea Pirlo. Instead, we’ve seen uninspiring performances and dropped points galore, with this current four-game run featuring three relegation battlers on the schedule and no wins recorded.

That is where Juventus are at right now. They have crashed so hard and so quickly that they are now struggling to even get a point against teams that are either in the relegation zone or just outside of it.

I know the first 500-plus words of this thread are more of a big picture thing rather than focusing on what happened against Hellas Verona on Saturday. But, at this point, what happened in Verona is unique to this certain game? It’s the same problems that we’ve been seeing for much of Allegri 2.0 — they fall behind thanks to a fluke kind of goal (or in this case a goal out of nothing on a great volley) and then struggle to either battle back and then get the lead once they’ve tied it. Juventus let a team that has scored less than a goal a game take the lead twice on them. Twice! And while I get that Juve needed a goal deeeeeeep into stoppage time from Andrea Cambiaso to beat Hellas Verona in their first meeting this season, it’s not like they’ve done a whole heck of a lot to improve their league position since then.

All that said, Juventus still had chances to win — which, considering how much of this game went, is still a surprising thing to say. If Federico Chiesa puts his first big-time chance a couple of feet lower, it’s right in the top corner of the goal and he’s racing off to celebrate. If Chiesa hits the ball a foot or two to either side of Lorenzo Montipo, then he’s racing off to celebrate a game-winning goal.

Not to say it’s all on Chiesa because it’s not. Juve had 18 shots and put all of four of them on target, with one of those being Dusan Vlahovic’s PK to tie things up a half hour in. Nearly half of those shots were blocked. Another six of those were off target. Against one of the worst defenses in Serie A, Juve barely challenged Montipo in goal.

That’s not going to cut it against a relegation battler or a contender for the top four. And the same old problems of years prior are now coming back into the spotlight because they’re dropping points in four straight games. January was fun, man. February is the complete opposite.

• I really do miss that five-game run in January. Man do I miss it.
• What are the odds Milan beat Monza and Juve’s in third place at the end of the weekend? I feel like it’s a pretty good chance of happening!
• Seriously, though, who woulda thought when January ended that less than three weeks later we would be talking about Juventus being on a four-game winless run in which they’ve scored all of two goals and risk falling out of second place? Things looked so secure and in such good shape that you started thinking to the summertime and an influx of Champions League money coming in. Now? Sheesh, it’s down BAD and unless this team snaps out of this funk soon it’s going to get even worse.
• Juventus, statistically, has one of the best defenses in the league. On Saturday, they allowed Hellas Verona to record one of their highest shot attempted totals this entire season. I get that Juve’s defense was without their best player because Bremer was suspended, but you just can’t let that happen. It’s almost a little surprising with how this game was played and how Juve’s defense was stretched that it finished at 2-2.
• Going off that, Wojciech Szczesny made a season-high seven saves against Hellas Verona. I get that a lot of them weren’t exactly tough saves and a lot of those shots were right at him, but the simple fact that Szczesny was called into action so many times is the worrying part.
• At least Vlahovic made his penalty kick. I don’t want to imagine with this space and the entire Juve ecosystem would have been like if Vlahovic missed another PK and was a direct reason why Juventus dropped points. (That PK was kinda cold blooded, too? He smashed that thing.)
• Chiesa constantly missing scoring chances that we all know he would bury if he was in better form makes me sad. This is not the Chiesa we know. Bring me back the Fred Church we all know and love. Juve need him so bad.
• Juve finished with an xG of 1.68. Nearly half of that total was on Vlahovic’s PK. Not great, folks!
• Adrien Rabiot with one of those classic showings where he was having a complete stinker and then he pops up and scores a goal. I was seriously texting a Juve friend about how bad he was playing right before Manuel Locatelli jumped on the loose ball and sent in the cross to Rabiot. Sometimes, these things just work out like that.
• Kenan Yildiz had some good moments against Hellas Verona. He also had some not so great moments. Kinda what you expect from an 18-year-old kid who’s still getting his footing as a player who is being relied on as one of the few creative outlets on this team. He’ll get there because of his talent level, but there’s going to be some obvious growing pains along the way.
• We got the chance to see Chiesa, Vlahovic and Yildiz all on the field together! It lasted all of about eight minutes. Hope you enjoyed it!
• Allegri had every right to yank Federico Gatti for both simple tactical reasons and the overall performance level, but the fact that the only real option he had was Alex Sandro since Tiago Djaló is still working his way back to full fitness kinda just shows where this team is at depth-wise. It’s not great.
• This team is clearly not mentally there right now. That Empoli draw was the major blow and the subsequent games after that were more body shots that they couldn’t afford to take.
• It was nice for Carlos Alcaraz to get some good minutes in a game in which Juve’s midfield was struggling to create much. He had some nice combination and passes in the final third, most notably with Chiesa down the left channel. Consider me intrigued, Charly.
• That’s really all I want to talk about this game. I’m just glad this result didn’t come a day after my favorite team lost the Super Bowl. So I’ve got that going for me. But Juve keep dropping points, so this ain’t all that nice.