Luciano Spalletti believes Juventus deserved to win their Serie A clash with Sassuolo on Sunday.

The Bianconeri fell to a dramatic 3-2 defeat at MAPEI Stadium, with four goals being scored in the space of 12 minutes late on.

After Edon Zhegrova cancelled out goals from Sebastiano Esposito and Kieron Bowie, Vasilije Adzic, who is on loan from Juve, scored the winner in the 94th minute for Sassuolo.

Juve conceded at least three goals from the 65th minute onwards in a Serie A match for only the fourth time since 2000, following games against Fiorentina (four in October 2013, 2-4 loss), Napoli (three in August 2019, 4-3 win) and AC Milan (three in July 2020, 2-4 loss).

The Bianconeri (W2 D1 L1) have lost at least one of their first four Serie A games of a season for the first time since 2021-22, when they lost two of their opening four matches (D2) under Massimiliano Allegri.

Although Spalletti insisted his side did enough to win, he acknowledged their push for all three points also cost them in the end.

"It hurts because the team could've won it at the end, and deserved to turn it around, but clearly we lost balance and that shouldn’t happen," Spalletti told DAZN Italia.

"With eight players going forward to attack the ball, it left huge gaps at the back.

"Yet we had the chances to win it 3-2 earlier, so the players thought they could win it, and I was the one who pushed them on to go and win it, but perhaps they took me a bit too literally and everyone joined in the attack at once.

"We have to take the positive intentions of wanting to win at all costs, and I think they had created the situations to turn it around for all three points.

"We were at the end, though, and too unbalanced, leaving those spaces is no doubt our fault, but it comes from the desire to win."