Juventus huffed
and puffed their way to a 1-0 away win against Zenit St Petersburg on
Wednesday to preserve its perfect start to the Champions League on the back of
a late winner by substitute Dejan Kulusevski.

Kulusevski
headed in the only goal of the match four minutes from time as Juventus added
to its wins against Malmo and Chelsea in the Champions League this season.

Juventus
remained on the top of Group H in the tournament. The Old Lady is three points
above its nearest rival Chelsea, which beat Malmo 4-0 in the other group match.
Zenit is six points behind Juventus with Malmo on zero points.

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Juventus
was full of confidence coming into the game as it was unbeaten in its previous
seven matches. It has yet to concede in the Champions League after three games.

 Zenit had the best opportunity in and
otherwise tame first half when in the 18th minute, Malcom profited from a slip
from Juventus winger Federico Bernardeschi to feed Claudinho but his fierce
effort was parried by Wojciech Szczęsny.

Juventus
had to wait for the second half to get its first shot on target. It came six
minutes into the second half when Weston McKennie sprung the offside trap on
Álvaro Morata’s pass but the United States midfielder fired straight at the
onrushing Stanislav Kritsyuk.

Juventus
was almost made to pay for that missed opportunity moments later as Zenit broke
quickly but some great defending from Bianconeri captain Leonardo Bonucci saw
him slide in to block Claudinho’s effort.

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McKennie
had another good chance in the 74th but he headed a tantalizing cross from
Mattia De Sciglio wide of the post.

Just as it
appeared as it if it was going to end goalless in Russia, birthday boy De
Sciglio whipped in another cross from the left and this time Kulusevski headed
it into the far side of the net.

Juventus
manager Massimiliano Allegri was not impressed by his team’s performance.

“In
two weeks we could be playing to qualify for the next round, but we didn’t have
a good performance today. We were slow and we made a lot of mistakes,”
Allegeri said.

(With AP
input)