Juventus 1 - 0 AS Roma: Tops & Flop of the first half

Nima Tavallaey Roodsari (@NimaTavRood)
23 dic 2017

Juventus are a goal up after the first 45 minutes at home at the Allianz Stadium in the Serie A against AS Roma after former Giallorossi player Mehdi Benatia scored on his own rebound to give the Bianconeri the lead.

As reported before the match, Juventus coach has decided to bench Paulo Dybala and it is hard to criticize him for this decision based on his team's first half performance where the Bianoneri have dominated proceedings from start to finish. Roma have created one or two chances thanks to the sheer individual brilliance of Edin Dzeko but in those cases another former Roma player, namely goalkeeper Szczesny, has been there to save the day for Juventus.

TOPS:

Miralem Pjanic: Phenomenal performance by the Bosnian who similarly to a certain Andrea Pirlo is the brain behind Juventus creativity on midfield.

Sami Khedir: Has run Roma ragged in midfield today. Links up brilliantly with Higuain when going forward as well as overlaps and helps Cuadrado on the wing whilst covering up behind Pjanic defensively.

Mehdi Benatia: Is the reason why Juventus fans have completely forgotten who Leonardo Bonucci is. Has fully bloomed out to the solid defender Roma hoped he would have when he played for them.

FLOP:

Daniele De Rossi: For most of his career evil tongue's have said that living under Francesco Totti's shadow was the reason he never blossomed out to the great player he has the potential to be. This season and tonight Totti no longer plays yet De Rossi is more a liability to his team than the heir to the Roma captaincy.