Delneri eyes crucial three points

Juventus coach Luigi Delneri expects a tough match when his side travel to take on Roma on Sunday.

With both sides fighting for a European berth next season, neither can afford to drop points as the season draws to a close.

Juve are currently five points behind Roma in seventh place on the Serie A table and Delneri expects to see his men reduce that deficit come Sunday.

“Every match is different. Enthusiasm affects important matches and our team is used to playing in important matches,” Delneri said.

“During this year we’ve proved to have the skills to compete at a high level in different moments.

“We’ve also had difficult and hard moments, but we have managed to show our skills when we’ve had to play against important teams: willingness, speed and quality.”

“We expect the match at the Stadio Olimpico to be very intense from this point of view, which is going to give us the right incentives to have a great performance on the pitch for 90 minutes.”

Juve were coasting earlier in the season until a run of bad results in January saw them slip out of the top four.

But with key players now returning from injury, Delneri believes their best football is ahead of them.

“I believe that January was very hard for us from that point of view, when we lost Quagliarella, Iaquinta and Melo in three days,” Delneri said.

“Melo was suspended for almost a month. We had to play in the cups as well, but some players couldn’t recover and others couldn’t play.”

“The team has been able to find the right balance and performances, but it has been difficult.”

“It has also been difficult for some guys, such as Fabio Grosso, whose injury has meant the end of the championship for him since he hasn’t been able to recover.”

“De Ceglie is still recovering after almost five months, with an uncommon injury in the football world.”

“Now he’s recovering and we hope he will have the strength to be again an important full-back, since we had seen him improve up to that moment.”