You had a boo-boo on your tum-tum?
For sure, it was really difficult to stay far from the team. Because you have a sense of responsibility that you want to stay every moment with your players, to breathe the environment in every situation. But this problem happened, and now I’m feeling much better than before. I’m not still 100 percent but I think I’m recovering well, it’s very important for me to stay with the team, work with them and try to stay together in a difficult moment for us.
Because in the last period we were not so lucky, because three surgeries – me and two surgery for the players. In the last seven days we had four serious injuries. For this season I think to stay together is very important and try in this type of situation to create the right spirit, to help each other much more than before to work together and overcome this difficult period.
The problem must have been extremely painful to keep you away?
As I said before, it was really painful to stay far away. To live the situation. In a way, this was the first time for me to stay far from the team. It happened in the past that I was banned and I had to watch the game (in the stands) but to stay so far was the first time and really painful.
What’s with your midfield?
For sure we did not have the time to take into consideration also this option. Rodrigo had an injury two days ago and for this reason to take also another option, to think of another option… the time was so short to prepare this game that I did not think of another solution.
We have the solution in our house, with the two young players, Skippy and Pape Sarr. You know we are talking about two young players, their first game in Champions League, they are really young – 20 and 22-years-old. Especially for this reason we have to be good to help them to overcome the emotion, and then we trust them.
In the future we will see because you said the truth. To stay for a long period with only three midfielders, to play Premier League and Champions League and also FA Cup will be really difficult. At the same time we have to not have another injury. Otherwise we are in trouble.
But we want to use this period to become stronger, to face this difficulty in the right way. We know tomorrow for sure there will be moments when we have to suffer, but we have to suffer together and overcome this difficulty together.
Inconsistent, much?
Unfortunately this is the truth, it’s like you say. Last year we had consistency in the last 14 games, we won 10 out of 14 and then to get in the Champions League we did something that was unexpected, it was incredible considering the situation we had. Considering the number of players, we just had 13 available last year. This year we resumed in the same way and then injuries started, especially in attack, with Lucas Moura, Kulusevski, so the situation got complicated. It was like a rollercoaster. One time you were up and then all of a sudden you were down. If you want to be competitive, if you are aiming for something important you need stability.
You need stability, you need consistency, you can’t have these ups and downs. I am trying to work on this and focusing on not having ups and downs. England is not like Italy, the Premier League is not like Serie A, we have different cultures in these two leagues. In England it is much more difficult to be focused and stay focused for every game. In Italy it is easier.
I am trying to work on this, I want my team to be more focused. When you have ups and down, which is what is happening to us, then obviously it is a bit thing. We need to look for more stability. Sometimes luck abandons you. This year many times we needed to be happy with what we had. This last period it is happening again but we need to react and be stronger.
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