Massimiliano Allegri previewed today the Fiorentina tilt: “We will have to play well because the matches in Florence never end. Their squad will be pushed by the entire city, they will be fierce and will try everything to beat us. The first three teams will all play on the road in this round. It is not a trap game, but certainly a difficult one.”
On the midfield: “Rodrigo Bentancur still has some energy in him and will start, then we will evaluate the conditions of Miralem Pjanic and Blaise Matuidi. Juan Cuadrado could be used there, but we will see where they are at physically. Wednesday’s bout was intense and draining, we need mental and physical energies.”
On the injured players: “Federico Bernardeschi will return, Douglas Costa is improving a lot and Mattia De Sciglio is available. Alex Sandro is unlikely to play. Sami Khedira is out. Emre Can partially practiced with the rest of the group yesterday and I will consider bringing him to the bench. He will train harder next week, so he will be at my disposal against Inter.”
On the next four games against Fiorentina, Inter, Torino and Roma: “There is a big piece of the championship on the line here, but we will say the same thing in April. We are focused on the first one, which is the most important and will be very tough.”
On the attack: “Everything becomes easier when you find the right chemistry. Paulo Dybala did well on Tuesday linking the midfield and the attack, he gets us out of some troubles with his technique. When he, Cristiano Ronaldo and Mario Mandzukic play together, they do not give the opponents any reference point. Dybala is a vital player and he can make plays all over the pitch with his skills. We have scored the most in Serie A so far, even though we have rarely played the opponents off the park. Perfection does not exist and I do not demand it either. Episodes are a big component of football, so the performances matter. We have to continue to raise the bar and ask ourselves to keep improving. We need to read and interpret the games in the proper way and understand that we have not accomplished anything yet.”
On the lineup: “De Sciglio and Joao Cancelo can play on both flanks, Cuadrado did well on the right the other day, but I might need him elsewhere. I do not think we will field the same men I did on Tuesday, we need fresh energies. I expect to make some changes.”
On the Christmas matches: “We will face some challenges prior to them. On December 25th we will be in Bergamo, we will try to eat as little panettone as possible. We want to be top of the league by the end of the year, so then we can relax a little and focus on Coppa Italia and Supercoppa.”
On the rivalry with Fiorentina: “It is has to be a healthy one. It is a matter of education and we have to improve on that in Italy. I expect a great sports night in front of a capacity crowd and we will have to be aware of the difficulty of the game.”
On Cristiano Ronaldo: “He has yet to ask me to sit, he is fine physically, we will find a way to rest him when we have few close games in a row.”
On Marko Pjaca: “He suffered a rough injury, he needs time to return who he was. I do not know what he is doing in Florence, you have to see a player daily to judge him. He needs to put in the right energy to get out of this moment and return what he was becoming. He has great quality and he is still young.”
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