Juventus eased to all three points on Saturday evening as they beat Sampdoria 3-1 away from home to maintain their impressive unbeaten run in Serie A.
Juve raced into a two-goal lead in the first half thanks to a Maya Yoshida own goal and an Alvaro Morata spot-kick. The away side did a sound job of keeping the hosts at arm’s length and it seemed that they would saunter to all three points, especially after Antonio Candreva had his penalty saved by Wojciech Szczesny midway through the second half.
A deflected free-kick from Abdelhamid Sabiri gave the hosts life with ten minutes remaining, but any late hope was swiftly dashed by Morata, who headed home from an excellent Manuel Locatelli cross.
Here are the Juventus player ratings from Juventus’ victory over Sampdoria on Saturday.
Goalkeeper & Defenders
Wojciech Szczesny (GK) – 7/10 – SAVED BY TEK! The Polish international denied Candreva from the spot midway through the second half to preserve Juve’s two-goal advantage after he’d smartly denied Stefano Sensi in the opening period.
Danilo (RB) – 6/10 – It was a comfortable outing for Danilo on his 100th appearance for the club.
Daniele Rugani (CB) – 7.5/10 – Rugani defended the box masterfully throughout and was particularly superb defending Candreva’s dangerous set-pieces.
Matthijs de Ligt (CB) – 7/10 – Sampdoria’s ageing front pair, while crafty, proved no match for De Ligt. The Dutchman didn’t seem to be heavily involved, but he still produced a couple of dominant sequences at the halfway line.
Luca Pellegrini (LB) – 6.5/10 – Full of life down the left, Pellegrini is returning to his exuberant best. While there was little by way of attacking output, he proved to be a pest defensively.