Conte: Fatigue could play a part

Juventus coach Antonio Conte feels fatigue could be a factor in his team’s Serie A clash with Lazio on Monday.

Juventus and Lazio have been involved in the Champions League and Europa League respectively this season, and their European campaigns were brought to a halt last week by Bayern Munich and Fenerbahce.

Lazio will be keen to make up ground on fourth-placed Fiorentina in the match against Juve, who lead the Serie A standings by nine points.

But Conte feels their loaded fixture lists up until this point in the season will have an effect on the two teams.

“We know that tomorrow we’ll be playing an important match on a difficult pitch,” Conte said.

“We shouldn’t forget that Lazio and Juventus are the teams who have played most matches in Europe and have played all the matches of the Coppa Italia, therefore tomorrow we’ll see the two teams which have played most this year. We’ll see what happens.

“We’re only focused on our match and we’re not interested in what the others do. This has always been our strength and should always be so.”

Lazio boss Vladimir Petkovic, meanwhile, feels his side have what it takes to beat Juve, but conceded they face a tall order.

“There aren’t unbeatable teams in football, any team needs to sweat and fight to achieve a good result and this will be true for Juventus tomorrow, as it will be true for us against Juventus,” Petkovic said.

“We want to achieve a good result tomorrow and we’re all aware that to win against Juventus we need more than 100 percent, we need to give our 150 percent, because Juventus are the strongest team in the league.

“We need a great effort, more than the maximum, to achieve the three points we want. We will try to achieve those points – they will be useful for the rest of the season.”