Juventus held to scoreless home draw in Turin derby
TURIN, Italy :Juventus largely dominated but were unable to get the better of neighbours Torino in a 0-0 home draw on Saturday, dealing a blow to Luciano Spalletti's side's hopes of gaining ground in the Serie A title race.
The hosts had won their last two Serie A games since sacking manager Igor Tudor, one of those victories coming in Spalletti's first game in charge, but a largely toothless derby display left the crowd frustrated.
Juve are fifth in the standings on 19 points from 11 games, two points behind Inter Milan, AC Milan and AS Roma, who all have a match in hand, with leaders Napoli on 22 points ahead of Sunday's game at Bologna. Torino are in 11th place on 14 points.
The opening half may have been mostly one-way traffic but Juventus struggled to create any real opportunities against their neighbours, any half-chances that came their way inspired by Francisco Conceicao.
The Portuguese winger played a decent ball into Dusan Vlahovic just outside the six-yard area but Torino defender Guillermo Maripan did well to get ahead of the Serbian striker to clear the danger.
YILDIZ STRUGGLING TO MAKE AN IMPACT
Conceicao also had a shot from a wide angle go narrowly the wrong side of the upright. If Conceicao provided a spark on the right side, Kenan Yildiz on the left is still struggling to live up to the number 10 jersey.
Yildiz was often guilty of losing possession, and on the rare occasion he managed to go past his marker, his final ball let him down.
Spalletti cut a frustrated figure on the sidelines, pacing his technical area and only standing still to take notes. But his halftime team talk did little to alter proceedings, if anything Torino grew in confidence and began to threaten.
"We were missing that little bit of quality and the fantasy that's needed in games like this," Spalletti told reporters.
"You need that precision to pass the ball between two opponents. You also need a little bit of luck."
The visitors, who had not beaten Juventus in their last 20 league meetings, never really looked like changing that statistic, but substitute Che Adams forced Michele Di Gregorio into a save with a powerful strike.
Spalletti changed things up, Edon Zhegrova and Jonathan David coming on, with Conceicao and Vlahovic, somewhat surprisingly, replaced.
Zhegrova whipped in a cross for Weston McKennie but keeper Alberto Paleari parried away the header, and try as Juventus might, a goal proved elusive.
"We need to improve because we have the possibility, but I'm happy with what I've seen," Spalletti added.
