05 January 2018
FOCUS ON CAGLIARI
"De Sciglio, Buffon, Cuadrado are all out of tomorrow’s match. Today I’ll evaluate the conditions of Marchisio and Sturaro and make a decision. Mandzukic is doing well, as are the rest, everyone is training at a high level. Today I will have to evaluate whether we go with two or three in midfield and who will play at right back, as De Sciglio is out so I will choose between Barzagli or Lichtsteiner."
"Buffon took a knock to his calf against Napoli, and then when we travelled to Olympiacos he tried to play but he couldn’t. It doesn’t make sense to risk him now, he will be available for selection after the break."
"Tomorrow we will be facing a confident Cagliari team after they produced a great win away to Atalanta last weekend. They are a fast team that is well organised in defence and they are a side that never gives up, so it will not be easy. We will have to play with the right intensity because we can’t afford to drop any points."
"I remember when we played Carpi just before the winter break two years ago and how difficult that game turned out to be for us in the last 10 minutes. Then last season, we travelled to Doha to take on AC Milan in the Italian Super Cup and although we didn’t lose on the pitch, we lost the penalty shootout after, so we have to remain absolutely focused on getting the win tomorrow."
START AS WE MEAN TO GO ON
"I feel that we’ve had a good first half to the season, we’re on 47 points, just one point behind Napoli, we’re in the next round of the Champions League and in the semi finals of the TIM Cup. The goals for the start of the season were to be challenging on all three fronts come March and we’re still on course for that. Then we will see if we can go even better and win all three, but right now we are doing what we intended to do."
"The points target we have set for ourselves to win the Scudetto is 96 points based on the 48 points that Napoli have accumulated already. We have experienced some setbacks, for example away to Genoa that we were able to recover from, but then others such as losing the lead at Atalanta and at home against Lazio where we made two mistakes and missed two penalties over both games and that would have definitely changed the results."
"Right now we are on 47 points and there is a long way to go in this season, we have to stay close to Napoli but we are also aware that Napoli will also drop points at some stage this season."
