Juventus make light work of wasteful Fiorentina to go 11 points clear

Date: 1st December 2018 at 7:53pm
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A toothless Fiorentina were their own worst enemies on Saturday evening as Juventus left the Stadio Artemio Franchi with what, in the end, was a comfortable and relatively straightforward 3-0 win.

Both started somewhat shakily and sloppiness dominated the first half, while the game’s biggest chance came and went without a goal as Giovanni Simeone somehow hit an air-shot when he should have buried the ball beyond Wojciech Szczesny.

Rodrigo Bentancur gave Juve the lead with half an hour played as he, after exchanging passes with Paulo Dybala, ventured into the Viola box before slotting beyond Alban Lafont, leaving the goalkeeper completely wrongfooted.

Fiorentina came back into the game in the second half but were again wasteful, with Vitor Hugo this time being the culprit behind the most glaring miss.

Giorgio Chiellini put the game beyond doubt with a right-footed volley on the turn that Lafont palmed up into the air and with Cristiano Ronaldo looking to follow up and head home, the ball dropped and fell into the goal.

Cristiano Ronaldo made it three from 12-yards with just over ten minutes of the 90 left to play, emphatically firing into the roof of Lafont’s goal.

Simeone’s slump

There’s no hiding for Giovanni Simeone. The Viola forward is quite clearly a man lacking in form and confidence and it’s hard to imagine him having an easier opportunity to end his drought that the one that fell his way in the first half.

A low cross from the right picked out Marco Benassi who half-hit a shot on the bounce, which landed perfectly in the path of the Argentine inside six yards but, somehow, he managed to miss the ball and allow Szczesny to gratefully grasp it.

Any contact would have been enough to score and it was the kind of chance an out-of-form forward usually needs; presenting itself with no time to think about what to do, other than send it towards goal, but it was a golden opportunity wasted.

With each week it looks more and more likely that his slump will continue and at this rate he might just need a stray shot to bounce off his shins and out of reach of an opposing goalkeeper.

It’s not the Old Lady’s first rodeo

Massimiliano Allegri said in the buildup to the game that this would be Fiorentina’sbiggest game of the season and that Juve would need to be at their best to come away from the Franchi with all three points.

He was only half right though and, in truth, Juventus just did as much as they needed to without being spectacular or even needing to be anywhere close to it.

Every game Juventus play is their opponents’ biggest of the campaign and they are more than equipped to deal with the intensity and pressure.

By the time Bentancur opened the scoring with half an hour played, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dybala and Mario Mandzukic had barely had a sniff but, in the end, it didn’t matter.

 

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