Juventus bang on the door but can't break down AC Milan in ...

It must’ve been weird when Massimiliano Allegri and Stefano Pioli greeted each other before Saturday’s game between Juventus and AC Milan. The two coaches are largely considered dead men walking. Much reporting assumes that the two will be sacked at the end of the year, leaving both in a strange lame-duck scenario as the season draws to a close.

Saturday’s match wasn’t completely about playing out the string. Juve still needed some wins in order to seal their spot in the top five and return to the Champions League next year. And if there was ever a time to get after second-placed Milan, it was now. The Rossoneri were missing their entire starting defense, leaving them ripe for a concerted attack.

Juve attacked this weakness — but not with full conviction until the second half, when they pinned their visitors back in their own end for much of the period. But Juve couldn’t get the ball across the goal line, and the game eventually finished in an unsatisfying goalless draw that, in the grand scheme of things, put neither team in their desired position as the run-in kicked into high gear.

Allegri made five changes from the XI that squeaked into the Coppa Italia final on Tuesday. Wojciech Szczesny took over the gloves after Mattia Perin’s Coppa outing, protected by Federico Gatti, Bremer, and Danilo. Tim Weah got a surprise start opposite Filip Kostic in the wing-back spots, flanking the midfield of Andrea Cambiaso, Manuel Locatelli, and Adrian Rabiot. Dusan Vlahovic led the attack along with Kenan Yildiz.

Pioli had a true crisis on their hands. Only three of his defenders were healthy and/or available for the game. Simon Kjaer and Pierre Kalulu were hurt, while Theo Hernandez, Davide Calabria and Fikayo Tomori were suspended for a pair of late red cards and yellow accumulation, respectively, accrued after Monday’s intense Derby della Madonnina. Just to pile on, starting keeper Mike Maignan strained an adductor in warmups, forcing Marco Sportiello between the posts at the base of a 4-2-3-1. Yunus Musah played as an emergency right-back, while Matteo Gabbia, Malick Thiaw, and Alessandro Florenzi joined him across the back. Yacine Adli and Tijjani Reijnders made up the double pivot in midfield, while Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and Rafael Leao supported Olivier Giroud in attack.

Juve actually played on the front foot from the start. They earned a pair of early corners, and in the eighth minute Vlahovic made an excellent turn under pressure from Thiaw to fire on goal, but the ball went right to Sportiello. Seven minutes later, Locatelli played an excellent line-splitting pass to Gatti, who decided to load up and fire rather than look for a teammate into the box, but it was a wilde effort that stayed rising into the stands.

As the half wore on, Juve started to drop back, although they still posed a threat. Cambiaso dragged wide after cutting inside, then Milan finally started to pin Juve into their end of the field. Leao fired wide from way too far out, then Musah had a shot charged down by a sliding Locatelli. Gabbia headed the ensuing corner wide, and it started to look like even this depleted Milan lineup was going to be treated the same way Allegri treats most teams: with a defensive approach bordering on deference.

Cambiaso tried to take a defensive header down and volley it, but his shot went wild. That was one of Juve’s only shots in the late first half, as Milan kept the initiative for most of the period. That changed a little bit right at the end, and one of the last plays of the half was a direct free kick that Vlahovic cheekily took low and beside the wall on the far side, forcing Sportiello down for a sprawling parry just in time.

The second half saw the momentum start to shift. Just five minutes in, Sportiello made his most impressive save of the evening when Kostic fired a howitzer of a shot at the near post, then Danilo’s follow-up hit Sportiello in the face and bounced back to where it came from. Yildiz could only direct a free header wide, while on the other end Locatelli came sliding in to block a shot by Musah.

Just after the hour mark, Allegri made his first move, sending on Federico Chiesa and Arkadiusz Milik. Vlahovic came off for the Pole, a move that elicited a frustrated response from the Juve No. 9, but Chiesa was not a like-for-like swap, instead taking the place of Kostic and — if you can believe it — turning the formation into a 3-4-3. Loftus-Cheek nearly opened the scoring a few minutes after that, but his long shot tailed wide, and from that point on Juve started turning the screw.

Chiesa quickly took the game over, repeatedly burning the depleted — and now tiring — Milan defense. Just after coming on he very nearly set up Yildiz with a low pass that was punched away by Sportiello, and in the 73rd minute he sent a gorgeous cross into the box for Milik, who headed down but with perhaps less power than required to get the ball past Sportiello, who got to the ground to stop it.

Photo by Daniele Badolato - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images

It was one-way traffic for the game’s final phase. With four minutes to go, it looked like Juve was going to win it when Sportiello spilled a header by Weston McKennie into the path of Rabiot, but Thiaw somehow ended up between the Frenchman and the goal and cleared the ball off the line. The ensuing corner brought even more frustration when Milik headed across goal from the near post but just put it in front of the far post.

Danilo and McKennie both had shots blocked late on, and Fabio Miretti fired the ball just over the top far corner from an acute angle in stoppages. The final kick of the game was, ironically, a corner earned by Milan at the last minute, but Szczesny punched it away — his only real involvement of the entire match — before the final whistle blew, sending each team home with a relatively unsatisfying point.

LE PAGELLE

WOJCIECH SZCZESNY - 6. Literally had almost nothing to do, given the fact that Juve didn’t give up a shot on target. Commanded his box well enough and did anything else required of him.

FEDERICO GATTI - 6. Made two interceptions — including one quite critical one in the box in the first half, and had a key pass going the other way.

BREMER - 7. Deleted Giroud from the game, making three tackles in three attempts and four clearances overall. Completed 97.9 percent of his passes.

DANILO - 6.5. High completion rate and a key pass as well, but one really wishes he had managed to avoid Sportiello’s face with that followup early in the second half.

TIMOTHY WEAH - 6. Easily his best game of the year and a good follow-on to his decisive appearance midweek. He made five tackles — one of three guys on the team who had at least that — and did a really good job defending Leao. Added on a key pass on the other end.

ANDREA CAMBIASO - 7. Had a pair of key passes, and his range of passing overall was impressive, nailing a couple of excellent creative passes. Did very well to team up with Weah and remove Leao from the game.

Photo by Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images

MANUEL LOCATELLI - 6. His best game in several weeks. He made five tackles, an interception, and two clearances defensively while finally finding his footing as an offensive player. He completed 90.9 percent of his passes, including two key passes and, crucially, several longer balls that attempted to break multiple lines at once. Those are the passes he needs to make to be successful in this position.

ADRIEN RABIOT 6.5. A force defensively, racking up six tackles, four interceptions, and one clearance. He was less of a threat offensively, though he did manage a key pass, but that rebound shot with a wide open net needed to be converted. That would’ve been the winner.

KENAN YILDIZ - 5.5. Worked hard and was just a tad too far away from one or two balls that would’ve put him in position to do some damage, but only took one off-target shot and couldn’t really create either.

DUSAN VLAHOVIC - 5. Hit the target with both of his shots, but for the most part was starved of service. His own passing was downright horrible, which contributes to his grade, but I would’ve loved to have seen what he might’ve been able to do after Chiesa came on. Definitely hauled off too soon in my opinion.

SUBS

FEDERICO CHIESA - 7. Completely took over the game once he came on. Made four key passes in just under 30 minutes of game time and simply ate Milan’s fullbacks alive regardless of what side he showed up on.

ARKADIUSZ MILIK - 5.5. Denied once by a smart Sportiello save and missed another shot that would’ve won the game for sure. He did have a key pass too, though, and did all of that with only nine touches in half an hour. Certainly benefitted from the tactical changes Allegri made on the hour.

WESTON McKENNIE - 5.5. Very nearly contributed to a win with that late header, and was one of two in shots on target, but his passing range proved to be limited and less than accurate on the day.

FABIO MIRETTI - NR. A bit of a surprise to see him after it looked like he’d fallen out of favor. He’s getting killed on the internet for that shot in stoppages, but I’m not really mad at his conficence—and the shot wasn’t a horrific miss from that kind of spot.

MANAGER ANALYSIS

Allegri very clearly wanted to remove Leao as a threat in this game. Cambiaso constantly switching to help double team him was clearly a planned move, and it worked, limiting his ability to create from the wing and reducing him to only two long-range shots that didn’t cause much in the way of worry. He was content to let Pulisic and Giroud try to beat him, and the rest of the defense didn’t let them. It was a good overall strategy from the defensive side to remove the opponent’s best player.

Photo by Daniele Badolato - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images

Offensively, this was an interesting night. The first half was played a little too corto muso, especially when you consider Milan was playing with only three healthy and available defenders and a makeshift right back PLUS a backup keeper in the game on short notice. This was the kind of game where you needed to push in the attack and force a shorthanded team onto its back foot.

The frustrating thing is that in the second half Allegri did exactly that, once again finally playing Chiesa and Yildiz together and seeing the Italian in particular exploding off the bench against a tired and shorthanded opponent. Juve had the game in their control for most of the second half, and came damn close to getting the ball into the net. Had Allegri made the effort to attack like that earlier in the game and force Milan to defend like that for longer, I’d be willing to bet that the goal we felt might’ve been coming late in that second half might have happened. I have the same feeling about leaving Vlahovic on the field a little longer—I’d have loved to see him work in that setup.

Ultimately, the lesson that Max needs to draw from the second half of this game is that this team IS in fact capable of playing like that with the right attitude and combination of players. With a very difficult run-in coming and Atalanta not fully put away to ensure Juve’s place in at least fifth, this kind of lineup and attitude needs to be seen a lot more in the last four games of the year.

LOOKING AHEAD

Juve are 10 points ahead of Lazio, who are provisionally in sixth, though Atalanta have two games in hand — one Sunday and another against Fiorentina that has yet to be rescheduled — and would be sitting in sixth and eight points back if they win the former contest against Empoli.

Juve’s next match is the first of two top-five clashes over their final four games, this one a trip to the Olimpico to face Roma, then a home game against already-relegated Salernitana. A trip to Bologna then ensues, followed by the final game of the season against Monza. It’ll be one heck of a run-in.