We both watch the matches, so probably we saw things differently, or our expectations were different.
I know you don't want to rely on stats, but before the last two matches, not only that we conceded less goals then any other team, but we also allowed less shots on our goal than any other team (less shots by far).
After 19 rounds we allowed 56 shots on our goal, while Inter allowed 79 and Milan 94.
Don't you think this is too much to be coincidence? Were we really that lucky?
You could say that we didn't deserve to have the best defense (regarding conceded goals) but is it possible that at the same time we allowed by far less shots on our goal than any other team?
And not only in serie A. In CL we also conceded only 3 goals (the best in CL) and only ManUtd allowed less goals on their goal than we did. That's 2nd out of 32 teams.
Like I told you, these numbers mean nothing to me, I don't want to discuss on this, I don't like comparing teams or players and specially statistically. Inter is not a perfect example, neither is Milan. Yeah, I know they are the leaders and ahead of us. One who choked in CL, and ended up 2nd in the easiest group, who also receive one hell of favors in the league, the other who plays in UEFA, and receive even more favors than the other in Serie A. We also do receive a lot of favors in the league (I know you won't deny that neither).
As for CL, yes I am happy that we passed the group that has Zenit and Real Madird. Statistically that was worrying no? Yeah I was worried too, but then again, We saw what was Real Madrid this year, they are 12 points behind Barcelona now, and they were even in worse form then. Zenit, yeah they fucked up big time, I remember they were 10th in the league then, I don't know where they finished the league recently.. and the other one is Bate, the team that played their first ever CL, and we had tough times against them.
I am not giving excuses here, you can check my posts everywhere, I gave the credit of ending first in that group, and I am as much as you delighted and proud, and I will even be more than satisfied even if we lose to Chelsea. But facts are facts Alen, we did good job, but let's not exaggerate everything.
I do think that as a unit we defended better than any other team in Italy and better than most of the teams in Europe.
We strongly disagree on this, but i do agree with you that the lack of individual quality in defense was always a problem that was going to cost us sooner or later.
We discussed this before, and I am not in a disagreement with you at all, you agree with me that our defenders are not so quality individually, but how could you not accept that we paid the costs of that a lot? we did, and we are still paying. Some matches we were lucky not to end them worse,no offense but I don't know how they count these crappy numbers, that means nothing, it doesn't make any sense for me to rely on these numbers. I mean I am sure that Inter's defense weren't broken as much as ours, if you include shots that were taken from 1000 kilometers, then maybe this number make sense. I can't even comment on numbers like these, because it doesn't convince me anything, these numbers can't tell me which ones were more dangerous, or close to goals.
I watched almost every Juventus matches, and I remember a lot of time when our defense was like a circus, that what matters me to be honest, we need to work on that, that's my point.
Marchisio and Sissoko are great, I always say that, and they have huge part of role in our defensive duty, no we don't disagree here, what I am saying, what we did against Milan defensively was awesome, and we could do it even more, if we had other players in defense, which we agree on.. and when we don't do that pressing, just like the last 4? 5? matches, then we start suffering, that's my whole point.