Luciano Spalletti rued Juventus' missed chances as their top-four hopes took a dent after a 1-1 draw with Sassuolo in Serie A.

Kenan Yildiz's 10th league goal of the season put Juventus ahead in the 14th minute, but they were pegged back by Andrea Pinamonti shortly after the break.

And Spalletti's side were handed a golden opportunity to win it via a Manuel Locatelli penalty late on, but the midfielder saw his effort saved by Arijanet Muric in the 87th minute.

As such, Juventus recorded their third home draw in Serie A since the turn of the year and missed the chance to leapfrog Como into fourth, instead drawing level with them on points.

Juve had 18 shots overall, with eight of those on target, while they generated 2.13 expected goals (xG), but they could not find a winner against Sassuolo, who scored from their only shot on target.

"When you play with four at the back, you have to spread the ball and surround them, so you create one-on-one situations," Spalletti told Sky Sport Italia.

"I kept telling them to find Yildiz and [Francisco] Conceicao, because Sassuolo were pinned back into their own penalty area.

"If you play through the middle and lose the ball, you struggle to get it back. If you lose it out wide, you can stop the counter and win it back quickly.

"Instead, we made decisions that in the long run we paid a price for, because too many times we didn't make the right choices, there wasn't enough maturity.

"We conceded the equaliser, created quite a few situations similar to the one that Sassuolo scored from, we had at least 10 of those, but we weren't reactive enough, didn't make the smartest choices."

No team have missed more penalties than Juventus in Serie A this season (three, tied with Como and Genoa).

And that could prove costly if Roma beat Lecce on Sunday, as they have an opportunity to go level on points with the Bianconeri going into the international break.

"We are distraught with disappointment about the result, but we smile anyway, because we create so many situations where we could've won it, but we have to accept the result," Spalletti added.

"There were some good things in the second half, even if we moved the ball a bit too slowly."