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Serie A

Juventus' Christian Poulsen is hoping his side can put their midweek disappointment behind them with a win over Cagliari.

Juve sit second in the league but saw their bubble burst emphatically during Wednesday night's trip to Bordeaux, where the hosts completed a relatively untroubled 2-0 victory to go top of Champions League Group A and put the Italian side's place in the competition in doubt.

Now Poulsen has called for his team-mates to put that showing behind them and return to their best ahead of their potentially crucial league assignment against leaders Inter Milan next week.

Diego fluffed a number of presentable chances during the defeat in France, but Denmark international Poulsen was keen to spread the blame for their off-colour showing, insisting the same would not be good enough at the Stadio Sant'Elia.

Poulsen said: "Bordeaux are a great team but we played a bad match. We must improve when we play Cagliari because this is an important match for us before the home match against Inter.

"Against Bordeaux things turned out badly but there is still one match for us to qualify to the final 16 of that competition."

The Cagliari clash is the start of an important trilogy of matches, taking in the clash with Inter and ending with the make-or-break return meeting with Bordeaux, and Poulsen, who is now a key part of the first XI having previously looked on his way out of the club, says the gravity of the matches is not lost on the players.

"They will be three big tests for the team, three very important moments for us. In the summer I went through a difficult time myself but I prepared very well and now I feel at ease with the mechanisms of the team.

"Last year taught me a lot and served as a lesson for me. Juve is a great team and it was not easy fitting in. I like being here however, there is a great group and I think that my performances this year have improved."

Juve boss Ciro Ferrara has echoed Poulsen's disappointment with the previous outing and has reiterated his call for his team to improve their discipline around the penalty area.

"I am not satisfied at all," said Ferrara. "As a team we did not play well.

"I had said to my players to avoid giving away fouls near the box, but we failed to do that and Bordeaux were superior to us."

Cagliari coach Massimiliano Allegri hopes his team will learn lessons from their 4-3 defeat to AC Milan in the last round of fixtures, halting a four-match winning streak for the Sardinians.

"I think we dropped our attention for five minutes when Milan scored their second and third," said Allegri.

"Against a side as strong as the Rossoneri you get punished if you let your guard drop in this way.

"We must learn from this and make sure we don´t do the same against Juventus."