Shit result and performance largely, not overly excited by seeing a team pull a performance back when the game is (should be) lost, that's easy in a way, but maybe this was important psychologically.
Repeating myself but this was always the wrong game at the wrong time, however it would have been a little easier with our starting CMs. It's obviously going to take time to gel a lot of players, young players, and you can't replace the experience lost overnight, but we still have a lot of quality and need to aim high. The CM/AM issue is problematic because it might have papered over some of the teething problems for the team in these first few weeks, if we have a progressive team we push opponents back and create pressure on them. Today we got squeezed into losing a CM battle with better players, constantly losing the ball in that area of the field, which pinned our wing backs into our own half and forced us to go more direct with the ball. That in itself is difficult as currently the striker partnerships are unfamiliar which each other.
It was obvious that we would go with 3-5-2 and probably try for a point, we were a little forced to do that because of the fear of being overrun by a combination of their CM and wide attackers, but we never did our jobs in that formation. We seem mentally off the pace a little, getting frustrated because it's not as slick as it was with the previous players who all knew their roles and runs. Conte created a very well-drilled team and Allegri adapted here, now we are almost revolutionising how we play and need to find cohesion quickly. There were some nice moments from Dybala, Pogba now and again when he tried the easier stuff, and Pereyra showed again that he can do even better off the bench than he sometimes does when he starts, but Madzukic was isolated, Sturaro a little stranded doing defensive work, and Padoin is obviously limited in what he can do directly against superior players. Marchisio may well be the most important player - other than the potential link man - in Allegri's system.