Juventus Top Performers – Round 25 vs Spezia

After surviving to a poor first half, Juventus successfully flipped the switch in the second one and received a major boost from the bench, taming a feisty opponent like Spezia and extending their victorious run at home.

Federico Bernardeschi (2 points): as weird as it may sound, the much-maligned winger changed the course of the game off the pine with two deep runs down the left flank and two quality balls towards the middle. The first one was met on the near post by Alvaro Morata, giving him an assist, while Federico Chiesa was denied by the goalkeeper on the first attempt on the second one but literally smashed home the rebound. The ex-Fiorentina man bagged a key goal but he was a little sloppy and not so vigorous down the flank prior to that, so the best midfielder among the starters was Dejan Kulusevski, who continuously challenged the defense with his technical runs. He dished two bonbons in the six-yard boxes but his teammates were unable to capitalize. Adrien Rabiot and Rodrigo Bentancur were outhustled and outrun but were fine in the offensive phase.

Alvaro Morata (4 points): his entrance was a sight for sore eyes as he always adds a ton of concreteness and in fact he hit the net on one of his first touches with a professional cut on a low-driven cross. He rarely does anything out of the ordinary, but the squad just works much better when he is out there always making the right play or the read. Cristiano Ronaldo got his customary goal on a late counter to round out a misleading score in a day were he was a tad wasteful and stubborn, but he came inches close from breaking the deadlock in the first half with a majestic shot that hit the post.

Wojciech Szczesny (7 points): the goalkeeper gets the token spot representing back-line as his only save preserved the clean-sheet, since he parried away a penalty kick at the buzzer. Even tough the Bianconeri were under pressure in the first half, Spezia only generated minor chances since Merih Demiral and Alex Sandro had a bounce-back performance and Danilo held things together merely by being present. The last-mintue forfeit of Matthijs De Ligt could have caused disarray, but the Turkish center-back anchored the defense well and performed much better while shadowing a physical opponent rather than having to guard an area like it was the case Saturday. He blocked a pair of shots as well for good measure, but the late soft penalty call soils his display a bit.

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