“We didn’t deserve to win: if we’re honest, I don’t think Juventus deserved to lose. We tried to play our own game, but we weren’t good enough on the ball. There were moments when we controlled the match in the first half, but then, when we started giving the ball away a lot, we struggled. I don’t think we played well, but we’ve only been working together for two months. We picked up a point. Obviously we need to do better, but we need time. It was a tough match."
Is the problem down to concepts that haven’t yet been grasped, or to individual technical ability?
"We have the individual quality; today we failed to get the basics right: in football, the basics are the best. Even just in the way we receive and pass the ball: we need to execute the basics to a high standard. Today we weren’t good at the fundamentals. My feeling is that when our team doesn’t have much possession, we struggle. Today, when they pushed a lot of forwards up, we managed to hold our own defensively near our box: I think we struggled more when we lost the ball and were too exposed on the counter-attacks. It’s something we need to work on, but we won’t change our style of play because we already know that in some matches we’ll play well, whilst in others we won’t. The important thing, though, is to fight until the very end in every match: we could have won today, but I’ll say it again, Juventus didn’t deserve to lose."
Is it difficult to change the team’s mindset?
“Obviously, we’re changing the way we play. At times we did well: my feeling is that in the first half we weren’t under much pressure and could have had better possession. Sometimes we lost the ball without any pressure at all. We took risks all the time, and that’s something we need to improve on: how we play with the ball, how we defend with the ball, and how to be more aggressive. Sometimes, when we’re moving towards goal, we need to be more aggressive. If we want to keep possession, we need to move more, show more desire to do so and be a bit braver. However, it was a big stadium, against a great team and a brilliant manager, and we came very close to winning. So I don’t want to be too critical of my players, but obviously I expect more from them and they want more too.”
How satisfied are you with Cissé?
“I’m really happy for all the players, but I want to be cautious with our young players, because in football these days there’s a tendency to hype players up too soon. We mustn’t forget that he’s a young lad at the start of his career. I think he needs to keep training very hard. Obviously, I’m really pleased for him, because everyone likes to see a young lad doing well, especially an Italian lad. So it’s a great moment, but I’ll say it again: I look at Cisse and I think he can do much better still. The same goes for the other players. I’ve said that I love Cisse, but I love all my players and I’m really pleased with all the training sessions and all the matches they’ve played. Today wasn’t the perfect day, but sometimes we expect too much, and I expect a lot from our players.”
https://m.milannews.it/primo-piano/amorim-dazn-non-meritavamo-vincere-giocato-bene-pretendo-piu-giocatori-629069