Stefano Pioli
MilanVincenzo Italiano
Fiorentina
Meeting HighlightsFiorentina
Words are meaningless and facts do the talking. We’ve analysed our mistakes and mustn’t repeat them. We have to perform at a high level for 90 minutes. We need to show that we’re a competitive side. Fiorentina have always caused us problems, and we’ll need to be compact, determined and decisive. They play attacking football, get a lot of men forward and are certainly a difficult side to face.
Individuals and Returns
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to reduce the number of injuries. Every year, we try to assess where and how we can improve in this respect, but each injury needs to be analysed individually in detail. Pulisic, Calabria and Loftus-Cheek will be available tomorrow, but we’ll be without Kjær, Leão and Okafor. Bennacer is doing well. He hasn’t had any setbacks with his recovery and finished his first week of work today. From the third week, he could be back available again. I talk to Jović every day, just like I do to everyone else. He knows what I expect from him and how we play. He’s ready to make a contribution.
Current Form
I have many responsibilities. I remain focused on trying to always do better together with the Club. So far, we haven’t achieved what we should have, but we’ve taken responsibility. The team are working well and are united, but we can do better. We’re only thinking about tomorrow’s game. For four consecutive matches, our second-half performances have cost us. Our concentration levels mustn’t drop, and we need to be consistent throughout the game. We haven’t lost our spirit.
Stefano Pioli
Manager on MilanFiorentina
Words are meaningless and facts do the talking. We’ve analysed our mistakes and mustn’t repeat them. We have to perform at a high level for 90 minutes. We need to show that we’re a competitive side. Fiorentina have always caused us problems, and we’ll need to be compact, determined and decisive. They play attacking football, get a lot of men forward and are certainly a difficult side to face.
Individuals and Returns
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to reduce the number of injuries. Every year, we try to assess where and how we can improve in this respect, but each injury needs to be analysed individually in detail. Pulisic, Calabria and Loftus-Cheek will be available tomorrow, but we’ll be without Kjær, Leão and Okafor. Bennacer is doing well. He hasn’t had any setbacks with his recovery and finished his first week of work today. From the third week, he could be back available again. I talk to Jović every day, just like I do to everyone else. He knows what I expect from him and how we play. He’s ready to make a contribution.
Current Form
I have many responsibilities. I remain focused on trying to always do better together with the Club. So far, we haven’t achieved what we should have, but we’ve taken responsibility. The team are working well and are united, but we can do better. We’re only thinking about tomorrow’s game. For four consecutive matches, our second-half performances have cost us. Our concentration levels mustn’t drop, and we need to be consistent throughout the game. We haven’t lost our spirit.
Vincenzo Italiano
Manager on FiorentinaTeam Status
We start again with energy and motivation. We are coming from a win that allows us to start over. We have a ranking that we want to preserve and improve if possible. We are facing a difficult match, we prepared well, the players arrived slowly, let's see what answers we get.
Injury Status
Beltrán is good, he has always trained, he is good, he has improved himself in recent days and he is with us. Kayode is much better, he has done more but we prefer to let him. He must remain in Florence to give him a place in the next missions. There is another important match on Thursday. (Genk) We will miss Ranieri, who is suspended for tomorrow. We are good, we are excited, we have to face it.
Milan
It's a tough match. Rival Milan is a strong team. They seemed to have difficulty in the last period, but they always reacted. There are champions on the team and the stadium will be in flames. This is the case for us. It's a test that shows we are mature. These are the goals we should seek. They are strong despite the shortcomings that we and other teams have. They have a very high quality coach, it is a tough test for us. We will have to try to make the win count. We often struggled after the breaks and we need answers in that sense as well.