Andrea Pirlo said Juventus had the wrong attitude and must show more respect to the shirt after a 1-0 home defeat to Benevento left their Serie A title hopes on the rocks.
The rookie head coach saw his team waste a chance to reduce Inter's advantage over them to seven points, with Adolfo Gaich preying on a calamitous pass from midfielder Arthur in the 69th minute.
Questions over Pirlo's leadership have already been asked and will persist, as the prospect of a 10th successive Scudetto disappears almost over the horizon.
It would take an Inter implosion and for Juventus to suddenly become infallible for Juventus to catch the Nerazzurri. Neither prospect looks likely.
"We needed to turn in a better display but we performed poorly, in every aspect of our game," Pirlo said. "Everything was off today, in our attitude and in technical situations.
"We knew this would be tough, because Benevento are an organised team, who defend effectively with two compact lines. What we needed was to stay calm and make better use of the flanks, but we made a lot of mistakes.
"When the result is hanging in the balance, panic can start to set in and that wasn't the attitude required. We also needed a little extra desire to get the result, because there was a real opportunity for us to close to gap in the league.
"We must continue to believe in the Scudetto, to follow our path and our work and always be there."
Juventus had 73.4 per cent of possession and led the shot count 21-7, with Cristiano Ronaldo having nine attempts as well as a goal disallowed for offside, while a penalty decision was also overturned in the first half.
Benevento's Alessandro Tuia made a game-high 10 clearances as the visitors scrambled to stay level initially and then hold on to their lead.
The fact Benevento, coached by former Juventus striker Filippo Inzaghi, were able to get ahead and stay ahead rankled with Pirlo, with last season's Serie B champions scoring from their one shot on target in the game.
"We have to change our mindset: we wear a jersey of huge importance, which must always be honoured," Pirlo added, quoted on the Juventus website. "Our attitude has to be different in games like this."
After the international break, Juventus will return to Serie A action with a derby against Torino, which should focus minds.
Assessing Arthur's blunder, Pirlo said: "He made a mistake that was not like him. In my opinion, he didn't see the opponent in that area of the field.
"It was a soft mistake, like many others we made. It means that we weren't concentrated and that we didn't give everything to achieve victory."
Leicester still have Premier League quality – Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders
Liverpool assistant boss Pep Lijnders believes they will take on a Premier League quality team in Leicester in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.
The Championship leaders, who look set to vie for an immediate return to the top flight under new coach Enzo Maresca, will make the trip to Anfield for a third-round tie.
Lijnders took over the hotseat from Jurgen Klopp for the pre-match press conference, and he said: “We know we’re going to play against a team that has a lot of individual quality.
“It shows how they are doing in the league. A real clear offensive game idea, very quick installation of this idea with the coach Enzo – he does an unbelievable job. I think each player could play in the Premier League.
“It will be really hard for us to get control of their key players and at the same time put them under pressure. As always in each game we will focus on ourselves.
“Of course we will make changes but we want to put our game into place, we want to be dominant, we want to be in their half of the pitch.”
The game will come too soon for Trent Alexander-Arnold, who Lijnders said “looked outstanding” on his return to training on Monday following a hamstring injury.
Midfielder Thiago Alcantara, who is yet to make an appearance this season, is back on the grass but is working individually.
There could be another chance, though, for 17-year-old winger Ben Doak, who started last week’s Europa League match in Linz.
Lijnders cited his Dutch heritage while discussing Doak’s potential, saying: “He is young so a lot of things can happen.
“I had the privilege to grow up in Holland and we have this culture, a long tactical culture of Johan Cruyff. This idea of having the wingers on the outside, they can create, can really disorganise the opposition, use the speed.
“Then, if you get a young winger from Scotland but only 17 years old and he has this capacity to create and to reach the final line with individual movement, it’s nice to see.
“The good thing about Ben in my opinion is he comes into a squad with so much senior authority. He will never make a sidestep, the boys will already tell him.
“He has this great low gravity and that’s how he can control the ball better. So he’s a really interesting player but loads to come, he needs to mature, he needs to listen to Robbo (Andy Robertson), to Mo Salah, to all these guys that are trying to help him.
“And I think it’s really good for the older players to have young players with this hunger. That combination is what we always had and that’s how we want to construct the squad.”
Bukayo Saka an injury concern for Arsenal’s trip to Bournemouth
Bukayo Saka has added to Arsenal’s injury woes as Mikel Arteta revealed the England winger could miss the weekend trip to Bournemouth with a foot problem.
The 22-year-old scored from the penalty spot and saw a first-half shot deflected in by Cristian Romero as the Gunners drew 2-2 at home to north London rivals Tottenham on Sunday.
Saka, though, then limped off late in the game to be replaced by Emile Smith Rowe and will definitely miss Wednesday’s Carabao Cup third-round clash at Brentford, while his club-record run of 86 consecutive Premier League appearances is also under threat.
Declan Rice was replaced at half-time against Spurs with a back issue and forwards Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard missed the game through injury, with Jurrien Timber and Thomas Partey also sidelined.
Now Arteta is worried Saka – who has four goals as well as four assists from the first eight games of the campaign – could join that lengthy injury list.
“He was limping quite badly after the match,” said Arteta. “We had to get him off the field, which is never a good sign. He hasn’t been able to participate in the session.”
Asked if he could miss the Bournemouth game, Arteta added: “It’s a possibility, yes.”
None of the players currently on the treatment table will be available for the London derby against the Bees, with the same quintet unlikely to return in time for Saturday’s trip to the south coast.
Saka could yet make an appearance at the Vitality Stadium as Arteta once again highlighted the amount of football being played as a potential explanation for so many injuries.
“It’s true that they play with the national teams and they’re coming from a season where they had a World Cup and some players played 60-odd games,” he said.
“We’ve been unlucky. Jurrien, for example, was due to other reasons, while Bukayo was because someone stepped on him.
“There are some traumatic injuries, others are more muscular. We try to find the ways to avoid them but they’re a part of football.
“It’s true that we have a lot of internationals in the last few windows and they have quite a lot of exposure to minutes but at the moment we have a squad that is not 24 players. To change 11 or 12 players tomorrow is just not a possibility we have.”
Arteta suggested he could rotate at the Gtech Community Stadium, with fringe players and young talent in line for a rare chance to impress.
“There are a lot of players who need minutes,” he said. “If you go through the squad there are lots of players who haven’t had minutes and they are going to need exposure, that’s for sure.
“We all trained today. The line up, we could not make it because there are still some players who are doubtful. So I will decide the best team to put out there.”
Under-pressure Napoli boss Rudi Garcia misses pre-match duties against Udinese
Napoli boss Rudi Garcia did not carry out his pre-match press conference duties on Tuesday as the pressure continued to grow on his position following another fractious weekend in Serie A.
The Partenopei welcome Udinese to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with criticism mounting over their faltering start to the defence of the title they won last season and frustration within the camp threatening to boil over.
They are without a win in three league games after Sunday’s goalless draw at Bologna, where striker Victor Osimhen made no secret of his displeasure at Garcia’s decision to substitute him late on after seeing him miss a penalty.
After the match, Garcia told reporters: “Even the greatest players in the history of football miss penalties. As for when he went off, we talked about that, what I say to my players remains in the locker room.”
Reports from Italy – where it has been claimed Garcia has four matches in which to save his job – have suggested Osimhen has since apologised to the manager in front of his team-mates, but with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia having been similarly unimpressed with his withdrawal during the 2-2 draw at Genoa eight days earlier, the optics are far from good.
The champions are already seven points adrift of leaders Inter Milan – who have a 100 per cent record – after five games, although Udinese boss Andrea Sottil had dismissed talk of a crisis.
Sottil told a press conference: “The newspapers say that Napoli are in crisis, but I absolutely don’t think so.
“It’s not my priority to understand if their locker room is working, I’m interested in creating a strategy for the match by working on my players.”
Napoli will have high hopes of a return to winning ways against a side who have drawn three, but won none of their league fixtures to date and currently lie inside the bottom three.
However under-pressure Garcia, who replaced Scudetto-winning boss Luciano Spalletti this summer, will be without defender Juan Jesus, who has been ruled out for several weeks with a grade-one hamstring injury.
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