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Juventus have vowed to stand by coach Luigi Del Neri after their defeat at home to AC Milan saw them fall 20 points behind the Serie A leaders.

Following the 1-0 victory over defending champions Inter on February 13, Juve have lost three games in succession, with Saturday’s 1-0 loss to the Rossoneri preceded by 2-0 defeats to Lecce and Bologna.

However, Juve director Beppe Marotta has indicated that Del Neri will remain in charge for the foreseeable future.

“The club must make an objective analysis and understand if the coach is to blame for this situation,” Marotta said. “The responsibility is to be shared out between everyone.

“We cannot just put Del Neri in the dock, so we will continue with this solution. The important thing now is to bring calm back to the squad and hope to get some players back to full fitness.

“In the next transfer session, we’ll focus on international experience as well as quality.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t expect to run into such a negative situation this year. There will be no revolution, as we laid the foundations for the future of Juventus this season and that includes Del Neri.”

Juve defender Andrea Barzagli, a January signing from Wolfsburg, added: “Juventus are united and have faith in the coach.

“We proved that by playing in a solid and determined fashion against Milan. This is a difficult time – we’re not happy and know that people expect a great deal from us. We will work with the coach to find a way out of this situation.”

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Arsene Wenger has revealed Jack Wilshere could be sidelined for Tuesday’s Champions League tie at Barcelona.

Arsenal are already without Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Thomas Vermaelen and Lukasz Fabianski for the game at the Camp Nou, while Alex Song is considered doubtful and Cesc Fabregas is still not certain to play.

Wilshere, Arsenal’s stand-out player at the Emirates in his side’s 2-1 victory, could also now miss out after he was caught by two Sulley Muntari tackles in Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Sunderland.

“Wilshere has an ankle problem and we’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday to see if he’s back,” Wenger said. “We will see how he responds to treatment.”

Wilshere, who was due to miss Sunday’s training session, made no mention of the injury in his post-match interview as he stressed his belief that Arsenal could prevail against Barca.

“We know we’ve got the confidence going to Barcelona,” he told BBC Sport. “We beat them here; we can beat them there.”

Wenger has stressed that Arsenal must put in a strong defensive performance at Barca if they are to progress, but indicated that he has no plans to park the bus.

“It will be very important for us to defend well because when you go to the most effective attacking team in the world, you want to have your best defenders available,” he said. “We will look to defend well and attack well. We are not a team that will refuse to attack – we know that.

“The challenge will be to find the right balance between having a team who can defend, as well as one that has a good opportunity, every time it has the ball, to go forward.”

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Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has expressed concern that “the ones who shout the loudest get more beneficial decisions” from referees as he prepares to lock horns with Sir Alex Ferguson in the North-West derby.

Ferguson was charged with improper conduct by the FA following Manchester United’s 2-1 defeat at Chelsea in midweek after he spoke out against referee Martin Atkinson, who awarded Chelsea a penalty and neglected to send off David Luiz despite two off-the-ball challenges.

Dalglish, who did not mention Ferguson by name, stressed that his hope that such comments would not influence officials’ decisions in United’s favour.

“Sometimes I worry that the ones who shout the loudest get more beneficial decisions – and that is totally unfair,” he said.

“This week the theme has been about referees and I’ve got to say that when I came back in as manager I was made fully aware of the respect campaign with regard to officials. I think we have adhered to the campaign in every respect.

“We have never come out and criticised match officials in any of our games. They have made mistakes in all of our games, but we’ve also made mistakes.

“It is impossible for officials not to make mistakes, but there is a respect campaign in football and I want to know whether we are going to be the only ones that adhere to it.

“I hope that we aren’t going to suffer as a club because we show respect to officials. We will continue to respect the campaign – but only as long as we don’t suffer in any way, shape or form because of it.

“At this particular moment, I don’t think anyone can argue that we haven’t suffered. We gave a good account of ourselves in the FA Cup tie at Old Trafford when we lost to a poor penalty decision made in the first minute and then had Steven Gerrard sent off.

“We will try our best to retain our dignity and show respect to referees, but we would also like to think they give us the respect we deserve by at least trying to go along with the guidelines of the campaign. Everybody thinks they are hard done-by by referees – and you are at some stage – but sometimes you get some benefits as well.”

Former Reds boss Rafael Benitez echoed Dalglish’s comments. “The people who are doing the right things have to have some benefit and, to the people that are not doing this, someone has to say, ‘Enough is enough’,” he said in the Mail on Sunday.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who said on Saturday that the FA could have thrown the book at Wayne Rooney for his actions against Wigan, was also critical of the United boss.

Asked about Ferguson’s attitude towards referees, Blatter said: “Respect starts with self-discipline. This is what we are asking for everywhere, from youth teams upwards.

“The higher your position, the higher your responsibility. Those who have more power should be more responsible towards others.”

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