Juventus manager remains hopeful his star midfielder Pogba will be back to his best despite playing just 34 minutes since he rejoined from Manchester United.
Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba was a key talking point again as Juventus hosted Sampdoria in the Serie A at the Allianz Stadium in Turin on Sunday.
Pogba was an obvious absentee as Juventus survived a real scare to overcome Sampdoria in the keenly contested six-goal thriller.
Juventus were pushed to the limits before they defeated Sampdoria 4-2, with the 29-year-old not involved for the Old Lady again, this time due to an injury.
It was the second consecutive game Pogba had missed after he was dropped for the Europa League round of 16 battle against Freiburg in mid-week for disciplinary reasons.
Allegri explains Pogba’s Sampdoria absence
Following the latest setback, Juventus manager, Maximiliano Allegri, has provided insight to explain what caused Pogba’s latest setback.
The former Manchester United midfielder has struggled to establish himself in Turin since he rejoined the club for a free last summer.
Pogba has struggled with injury problems which have frustrated his second coming to Juventus and restricted him to just 34 minutes of football across all competitions since last summer.
When Pogba played his first game for Juventus this season
Speaking on the latest setback, Allegri noted that the former world cup winner felt discomfort in his adductor while practising free kicks ahead of the game against Sampdoria.
"This morning while he was taking free kicks, he felt discomfort in his adductor (and) he stopped, " Allegri said per Football Italia.
“Tomorrow we will see the extent of the damage. Tonight he could have given us a hand.”
Despite the setback which could see Pogba miss more games for the club, Allegri remains optimistic that the ex-Red Devil will be back to his best.
“(But) we are waiting for him, it's a year like this anyway, these things happen in life too,” he added.
“He must be good and strong to get up and want to return to the player he was before."
Rabiot to the rescue for Juventus
Meanwhile, in the Serie A game at the Allianz Stadium, Sampdoria almost stole a valuable away point but for another French star Adrien Rabiot.
Rabiot was the star and hero of the day as Juventus overcome a motivated and dangerous Sampdoria without some of their biggest stars including the in-form Angel di Maria, who missed the game due to an injury.
Juventus vs Sampdoria: Full match report of Rabiot's superman rescue mission.
In the absence of Di Maria and his compatriot, Rabiot scored two goals to inspire Juventus to a 4-2 over the gallant visitors.
Juventus took a two-goal lead thanks to goals from Gleison Bremer and Rabiot in the opening 26 minutes before they let it slim away as Sampdoria hit back with two of theirs in the space of two minutes via Tommaso Augelio and Filip Djuricic.
However, it was all Juventus in the second half as Rabiot restored the lead in the 64th minute before Matias Soule wrapped things up in added time after Dusan Vlahovic missed the chance to do so earlier on through a spot kick, five minutes after Rabiot’s second goal of the day for Juventus.
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