This week's analysis looks at Juventus, the Serie A Champions for a ninth successive year.

Even though the title was wrapped up with a few games remaining Juventus did not finish the season well. Maurizio Sarris men stumbled over the line and if it were not for a strong start to the campaign they would have been in trouble. Lazio and Inter also struggled which helped Juve in their quest for another Serie A title.

When looking at Juventus vs Lazio, Juve set up in a 1433 shape vs Lazio's 1352. Juve looked to press high from Lazio goal kicks and posed very aggressive press. The front three of Juve remained narrow forcing Lazio into wide areas towards their wing backs. When this happened, Juventus looked to congest the side and force Lazio into long balls or giving the ball away.   This pressing style worked very well and Juve won a lot of balls from this. When the high press was not on Juventus would retreat to a mid-block adopting a 1442 shape. This was done by Dybala joining Cristiano Ronaldo up top where the two strikers now forced the Lazio back three to play wide to the wing back. Key feature for Juve was prevent any balls inside and look to force wide. 

In transition Juventus were lethal, the goal was to keep Ronaldo high and looked to find him quickly on every opportunity they had. The RCB of Lazio would follow Ronaldo who drifted left and leaving a lot of room in behind to expose Lazio's backline. Rabiot would look to support Ronaldo by making runs from deep in behind exploiting the Lazio line.

The Juve goal came from a counterattack, Dybala and Ronaldo in their mid-block shape stole the ball from the Lazio back three during build up and countered at great speed to score.  

The win versus Lazio was a big victory and edged Juve to the Serie A title.  Sarri set his team up well in this game understanding that Juve had more numbers in wide areas and the key was to prevent central attacks.  In part 2 of the analysis we look at Juventus after this game, where they conceded a lot of goals in their remaining fixtures. This and the Champions Leaue exit lead to the dismissal of Maurizio Sarri from Juventus. Defensively at times very vulnerable and exposed.

One thing is for sure Maurizio Sarri is a title winning coach and should be extremely proud of his and the team's achievement.