Juventus vs Benevento - Juve boss Allegri refuses to take pointless Benevento lightly

Posted Saturday, November 04, 2017 by PA

Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri will not use Sunday's home game against the worst top-flight team in Europe to experiment with his own side.

Benevento, promoted via the Serie B play-offs in the summer, remain pointless after 11 games of their first ever campaign in the Italian first division, making them the least successful outfit in the continent's major leagues.

The clash at the Allianz Stadium could therefore represent an excellent opportunity for Allegri to tinker with his starting XI given the lack of threat the opposition, who have scored only four goals, is likely to pose.

But the Juve head coach will not take any chances as his reigning champions are currently in third place behind Inter Milan and leaders Napoli.

"There will be no experimenting tomorrow," insisted Allegri in press conference quotes carried by Juve's official Twitter account. "Benevento are not coming here to gift us anything.

"We will have to play a very serious game, although there will have to be some changes.

"Miralem Pjanic has a muscle problem after Tuesday (the 1-1 Champions League draw at Sporting Lisbon), while Medhi Benatia is still unavailable and Sami Khedira might not play.

"Claudio Marchisio probably will and there'll be an opportunity for Benedikt Howedes."

Following league games against Sampdoria and Crotone, sandwiching a European showdown with Barcelona, Juve must go into back-to-back Serie A encounters with Napoli and Inter.

Allegri added: "We have to win this one because then we have some games against direct rivals.

"There can be distractions. We must not slip up."

Roberto De Zerbi has thus far been unable to turn Benevento's fortunes around since replacing Marco Baroni on October 23.

His debut on the Witches' bench was a 2-1 loss at Cagliari before Benevento were thrashed 5-1 by Lazio back at their Stadio Ciro Vigorito base.

On-loan Sassuolo striker Pietro Iemello was on the score sheet in Sardinia and he is making positive noises before the daunting date with the six-in-a-row Scudetto winners in Turin.

He told La Gazzetta dello Sport: "We don't have anything to lose. We have to try and give our all because we'll be playing against the very best.

"We have focused more on preparing what we're going to do than focusing on what our opponents are going to do as we already know who we're up against.

"We know the match starts at 0-0 and we're not going there to be slapped around, but instead to play with dignity.

"We've adopted a system of playing that requires a lot of possession of the ball and if we manage to apply it against the strongest teams then we can be more confident about our future prospects."