APPIANO GENTILE – As he addressed journalists during his press conference today, the day before Inter welcome Lazio to the Stadio Meazza, Andrea Stramaccioni was keen to emphasise the efforts and improvement made by his players.
"We have to go out there and give it everything we've got, just like we did against Napoli, Parma and Palermo – in each of those games we felt we did everything we possibly could. We moved the ball around well at Napoli and showed that we have quality in midfield, which had been our Achilles' heel in a way. That's a good sign. We want to win, we want to beat Lazio and we'll be even more motivated by the fact that we've got these injury problems. We'll keep working to improve our game in the middle of the park, an area where we've come on since Mateo [Kovacic] joined.
"Mateo's position in the future? In the Inter team of the future he'll play in a midfield three. At the moment he's the midfielder who offers us the most quality in the final third. He's finishing the season in great form. Defensive duties are not the strongest side of his game but he's putting a lot into it.
"It's so important for us to get a result tomorrow. We haven't taken our foot off the pedal and we're not going to. We're definitely not going into freefall."
The Nerazzurri coach is completely focused on finishing the season well, so when asked about the possibility of Leonardo returning to the club he replied: "I'm thinking about nothing but my team and these last three games. I'm not saying much about the transfer market because I want to concentrate on the pitch and we have to keep at it until until 19 May. There are three games left to play and we want to do well in them. Afterwards we can talk about next year."
Asked again to analyse Inter's season, the coach replied: "We know what happened this year, we're angry and sad but we've never looked for excuses or shied away. We've taken the flak and we're obviously angry that we weren't able to reach our objectives. When I hear that Lazio, for example, have struggled in Klose's absence – just one striker – I have to think about all the absences we've had to contend with. There'll be no shortage of motivation for the coach and the players tomorrow though, that's for sure. If I did see that someone wasn't motivated enough, he'd sit out.
"We want to win tomorrow and we'll use our anger to achieve that. We want to show people that our injury crisis hasn't drained our motivation. The lads will give it all they have. We're determined to beat Lazio."
