MIHAJLOVIC LOOKS AHEAD
This is what was said by Sinisa Mihajlovic after the team booked their place in the final of the TIM Cup on Tuesday night thanks to a 5-0 aggregate win over Lega Pro outfit Alessandria in the semi-finals:
"It was massively important for us to book our place in the final tonight and to play with the right approach and win in this manner. It was also important to give playing time to those players that have featured less this season. We achieved both of our aims and we have also secured our first objective of the season. We will think about the final however when the time comes. The first priority is our next match in Serie A TIM".
"You could see tonight that Menez and Balotelli are still a little bit short of match-fitness, and the same also applies at the moment to Luiz Adriano, but they will all be key players for us from now on. Luiz Adriano will be back in full training from Wednesday. Romagnoli played well and so did Zapata. With Alex, we have 3 excellent centre-backs and I am kind of tempted to play with 3 at the back. All three of them are worthy of a starting place, but we will see who I choose for Sunday’s match. At half-time, I asked the lads to keep on going because it’s important we work on our mental approach too. We needed a big win like this for ourselves but also to strike a bit of fear into our rivals. The team came through it and showed they have the right attitude".
"Sunday’s match with Sassuolo will be difficult. Sassuolo are in good shape seeing as they won at Lazio. But if we play as we have been doing lately, we can come away with all 3 points. Let’s see how things develop over the coming matches as to whether we can fight for third place. We have always been a close-knit group and only by working hard have we been able to come out of a negative situation. We have turned things around, we have reached the final, but in the league we are still sixth and we need to keep making up ground in the table."
(Photo LaPresse)
