“We always have to go for the three points, whether we’re winning or losing,” began Walter Mazzarri as he spoke to the media after Inter-Bologna.
“We came into the game on the back of a few strange matches and you could sense the pressure. We held back a bit, almost as if we were afraid to win, and yet we still created the chances. We went all out for the win at the end, making substitutions that forced players slightly out of position but it meant we could maintain the same formation. Kovacic played very well, as did Hernanes.
“I’m not interested in talking about us missing out on targets. People who have seen our games this year know that we deserve to be in Europe.
“Football is not an exact science, I don’t know what happened today. Anyone can miss a penalty: Diego is a top player, an expert penalty taker and today he missed one. But even their second equaliser had an element of luck about it. I guess we’re not used to taking penalties any more.”
“I never mentioned bad luck, I said it was about incidents. Look at that Bologna shot which flew through a crowd of legs. Or their second goal. How can you correct something like that? I’m just analysing the way the game went. The mistake from the spot was par for the course with the way things are going for us at the moment and the percentage of errors we have.
“Looking at when they scored their first goal, I can say that we were playing well. And then with their first chance they went and scored… I’ll look over the game again tomorrow with Frustalupi. We always spend a lot of time going over our mistakes but we’re conceding strange goals. If Nagatomo had kept his cool he wouldn’t have got turned like that.
“In Verona I shouted myself hoarse during the interval to gee up the players, because we do have this nasty habit of switching off every now and then. In Livorno I spoke to them in a normal tone of voice and I later regretted it – I should have torn the dressing room apart. You get times things like tonight that escape all logic.”