Juventus moved to the top of Serie A ahead of Napoli's match Sunday with a 2-0 victory over Chievo, which played 30 minutes with nine men at the Bentegodi.
Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said his team need to do much better to adjust their tempo after struggling to secure a 2-0 win over nine-man Chievo Verona on Saturday.
Allegri's men returned to the top of the Serie A table overnight with the result, but they could not breakthrough against Chievo until both Samuel Bastien and Fabrizio Cacciatore had been sent off.
Sami Khedira and Gonzalo Higuain then found the net, and Allegri said Juventus could have made it easier on themselves by increasing the pace of play.
"We were struggling to find some width in the first half and also should've upped the tempo, but we had this slow passing that allowed Chievo to get back into position," he told Mediaset Premium.
"This game is proof that you have to earn the result on the field, no matter who you are against or how many players, because there was that one incident where we were positioned badly, unbalanced and [goalkeeper Wojciech] Szczesny did well to rush off his line.
"We have to improve a great deal when it comes to the tempo, learning when to slow it down or speed it up, as otherwise we become too predictable."
But Allegri was still content with the result, and gave credit to Chievo for being up to the task before the red cards.
"It was difficult because Chievo were defending well. In the first half, we tried to move them from one side to the other to create spaces," Allegri said.
"Obviously, it was simpler after they went down to nine men, even if we lost a little balance towards the end and didn't realise there was still half an hour to go. We kept a clean sheet, got the three points away from home and are happy with that."
Sami Khedira gave Juventus the lead over Chievo Verona.
Chievo coach Rolando Maran was frustrated with what he saw as "nit-picking" that saw his side reduced to nine men.
Bastien received two yellow cards in as many minutes before Cacciatore was shown a straight red for making the "handcuffs" gesture towards the official.
Cacciatore was complaining to the referee after not being awarded a free kick following a crunching tackle. The referee told the defender to go to the sidelines as the medical staff had come on to treat him and he was then seen clearly making the gesture.
"The gesture he made was wrong, but there was no need to send him to the sidelines when taking a short corner and already down to 10 men," Maran said.
"There was no time wasted and we were told recently by the referees in a summit that if no time was spent on medical staff entering the field, then it's unnecessary to send the player off the field.
"When you try so hard, put in so much effort and see such nit-picking... a player can lose his head in a tense moment, but when down to nine men, you are left with frustration and anger.
"I don't see why the referee had to make us defend a corner with a man down."
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Source: espn.co.uk