APPIANO GENTILE – "We all know how important the last ten league games are for us, but for now we're focusing on tomorrow evening. We all want to make a good fist of it. Then on Friday we'll think about the championship, which is very important to us. We must put in a good performance and win in front of our fans, but we'll probably need a bit of luck if we are to qualify as well." The Europa League and Tottenham are all that matters to Andrea Stramaccioni at the moment and it's a point he was keen to reiterate during the UEFA press conference ahead of tomorrow's round-of-16 return leg at the Stadio Meazza: "It's our duty to focus on this game and work hard at it, especially after the first leg. We know what our situation is in the Europa League. We're going to honour it and try to do well. We'll see how the game goes, it's a tough scoreline to overturn but we'll go out there to win."
"Things aren't coming off for us at the moment and we're not playing well, there's no point denying it. It's up to me, as the coach, to find the right way to restore confidence to my players because they seem to have lost that. Regardless of the whys - which is another thing we're working on - we must get our confidence back. We looked frightened against Bologna, we had a mental block. We need to work on the mental aspect as that's what helped us do so well before. It only takes a second to ruin everything, but now we need to pick ourselves up. I've never shied away from my responsibilities, but this is the same coach and the same players who did very well before. We've got ten games left, it's a mini-championship. Let's restore confidence, there'll be time to put people on trial later."
Overturning the first-leg result is something Barcelona managed last
night when they knocked out AC Milan, a game in which the psychological aspect played a key part. Is that something that can help Inter? "Yes, but the players have played lots of
games and it's important to manage our energy levels. Of
course we've also worked on our opponents' tactics. We need to
prevent them from expressing their quality, and we'll see on the
pitch tomorrow if we manage to do that. How can we restore some calm?
Calm is the wrong word. A coach must always keep a clear head. I
think one of the things I'm good at is working on the pitch and it's
crucial that I focus on the pitch now. We know the rules of this game; in fact I benefited from a similar situation last year. I consider myself to be a person of average intelligence and I know that when things aren't going well at Inter, you get situations like this. I'd be worried if I saw no desire in my players to turn this around. In the second half against Bologna it was as if we woke up, now I'm concentrating on the games we have left to play. Deep down I know I'll be judged based on what we'll do between now and the end. President Moratti is angry but so are we."
