Juventus must have faith in their squad and coach Luciano Spalletti, so says sporting director Giorgio Chiellini.

The Bianconeri, trailing 5-2 from the first leg of their Champions League play-off tie with Galatasaray, fought back to lead 3-0 in the second leg in Turin on Wednesday.

That is despite Lloyd Kelly seeing red after accidentally landing on Baris Alper Yilmaz early in the second half, a decision which Federico Gatti slammed as "absurd".

Manuel Locattelli, Gatti and Weston McKennie were on target to force extra time, but with their numerical advantage, Gala came on strong in the additional 30 minutes, settling the contest 7-5 on aggregate via goals from Victor Osminhen and Yilmaz.

Juve sit fifth in Serie A, four points off fourth, and are now out of Europe, but Chiellini insists they must have patience with Spalletti, who replaced Igor Tudor earlier this season.

"Luciano is not here, because I think it is only right that a director is here tonight," Chiellini told Amazon Prime, as quoted by Football Italia.

"We are exhausted and disappointed by this result, despite the performance. At the same time, we are very proud for the way we played.

"The feeling we must have is that this is a starting point to rediscover the spark that we've been lacking, as we go into the final weeks of the season.

"If we want to look at Spalletti's tenure, we got one and a half games wrong since he arrived. We haven't been very fortunate when it comes to the incidents, but we have to keep going.

"We need to keep faith in these players and this coach. There is a process and that can mean a few negative results, despite good performances.

"There are 12 games to go this season, where there is a lot at stake. The team is ready, we saw that tonight, and the growth process continues even with a few slip-ups and obstacles in our path."

Kelly became the second Englishman to receive a red card in a Champions League knockout stage match for a non-English team after Matt Derbyshire for Olympiacos versus Bordeaux in the 2009-10 round of 16.

He was dismissed after a VAR review, and Gatti did not hold back in his criticism of the referee's decision.

Gatti said: "The problem is that we threw qualification away in the first leg, but tonight was an extraordinary performance.

"The red card for Kelly seems absurd to me, defenders are far too penalised by these rules. The reaction was incredible, the fans really helped support us too, but we were exhausted in extra time. We had got the game back on track down to 10 men, but we threw it all away in the first leg.

"It's so disappointing, because the qualification is ultimately the only thing that counts, and we didn’t get the result we needed. It was an enormous performance, though."

Galatasaray, meanwhile, have reached the Champions League round of 16 for the third time after the 2012-13 and 2013-14 campaigns.