Juventus v Fiorentina

A break neck start for Juventus, while they lost something in the second half. A narrow win that could have easily lead to another draw, which would've meant they dropped another 2 points but as fate would have it, they have regained top spot albeit by only 1 point but if Udinese lose against Napoli, they will once again have some breathing room.

Juve started off brightly with a shot from Simone Pepe on the seventh minute that forced Arthur Boruc to make his first save of the night. Pepe was by far the most hardworking and creative of the bunch, his tireless runs and his ability to get back to help the defence were inspirational. Yet for all his hard work it was not he who scored the first goal. It was Leonardo Bonucci, but it started from another little solider ; Claudio Marchisio. It was his shot on target that forced Boruc to parry the ball within the reach if Bonucci who was the first to react and opened the scoring for The Old Lady.

Juve were wasting an alarming amount of opportunities and should have been up by 2 goals before the break. Out of 21 shot only 14 were on target and only forced the keeper to save on 12 occasions. A statistic that should make the Bianconeri think about their cutting edge. More to the point, Mirku Vucinc was not exactly in sparkling form, out of 5 shots only three were on target and they were either tame or straight at the keeper making it almost an easy save. Juve should work on this as in the second half they paid for all their missed chances with an equaliser by La Viola in the 57th minute. This did cause a slight panic from Juve, which was scrappy to say the least! But Juve eventually found the rhythm and tempo from the first half and resulted in a goal from Alessandro Matri in the 65th minute, it was all due to the hard work and persistent play from Pepe, Pepe had five Fiorentina players around him but still managed to get the ball to Matri and Matri did what all great strikers do.. he banged it into the goal and Juve were once again in the lead.

With all three points collected, Juve can go into Saturday's game with Inter on a high... but they still have a lot to work on. I must say this is one of the better birthdays I have enjoyed. Thank you Juventus!