Vlahovic gives crisis-hit Juve reprieve

Dusan Vlahovic saved Juventus from going into an even deeper crisis with the only goal in Saturday’s 1-0 derby win at Torino which relieved some pressure on under-fire coach Massimiliano Allegri.

Juve went into the derby reeling from Champions League humiliation at the hands of Maccabi Haifa, but Vlahovic gave his boss some breathing room despite another poor team display against a Torino side who had no available strikers.

Serbia forward Vlahovic pushed in the winner with 15 minutes remaining to give Juve their first away win this season and allow his teammates to leave in better spirits a training camp imposed by the club following an awful start to the season.

“Difficult times help you to grow, you learn more from these periods than from when everything goes well,” Vlahovic told DAZN.

“Whether I play well or not, I make sure that I give everything, every time.”

Juve are seventh, seven points behind league leaders Napoli, who host Bologna on Sunday evening.

However the gap between Juve and the Serie A summit will increase again on Saturday if Atalanta beat Sassuolo in the day’s late match and move a point ahead of Napoli.

“Today the boys showed that they are a team. They played well and I’m happy for them... It wasn’t easy,” Allegri told DAZN.

“It’s a shame we’ve had such a hard time recently but sometimes things happen about which you can’t do very much, then you get stuck in situations that you need to break out from. Today was the first baby step towards that.”