Juventus are still far away from mounting a serious title challenge

Juventus are still far away from mounting a serious title challenge this season. The team has been showing some decent run of form only in the last few weeks.

Three victories in the last five have seen them rise to 7th in the table. They, however, still remain almost 10 points behind table leaders Fiorentina. A major factor behind this poor form has been the loss of key players like Andrea Pirlo and Carlos Tevez in one transfer window. Equally important has been the lack of good performances from midfielder Paul Pogba. The French international was linked with a world record transfer to Barcelona or Chelsea in the summer.

A serious offer never came in for the 22-year-old and he has been at Turin. However, his valuations will have gone down significantly following the first few months of the season. Manager Massimiliano Allegri may have seen pressure upon him go away slightly following back-to-back victories, but he believes that there is still more to come from the team. He is also confident that midfielder Pogba will recover form. The midfielder has only scored two goals in 16 appearances this season. He has been playing more of a box to box midfielder to utilise his impressive stamina and strength.

"He’s growing. Tonight, he put in an important performance but he still has to improve.He needs to read certain moments of the game better,” said Allegri.“Our character as a team must grow but we must also improve in a technical sense.We shouldn’t struggle on the sign of pressure from the opposition. If we are not able to keep the ball, we should play it long into our strikers, at the very least. I think that the team still has to grow and stop being overcome by nerves,” said the manager about the improvement in form.