Giampaolo preparing for battle: “Cagliari will be a tough outfit and we’ll match them”

Marco Giampaolo has called upon his players to put the recent bout of bad luck behind them ahead of Monday’s game away against Cagliari.

“We need to put the defeat out of our minds as soon as possible to stop it becoming a vicious cycle,” the Blucerchiati coach declared in his pre-match news conference. “We need to hit reset and start again, analysing what we’ve been doing well and what needs to be improved. We’ll play our game against Cagliari, just like usual.”

The Rossoblu have equal reason to want to bounce back after their midweek thrashing at the hands of Juventus. “Cagliari at home are a dangerous outfit, they’re quality and have a talented forward line. Plus they pack a lot of muscle in midfield. I expect Cagliari to be tough tomorrow, but Samp will be equally so.”

Looking back at the loss against Bologna on Wednesday, Giampaolo laid out the road forward for Sampdoria: “We need to improve how we respond to difficult moments and put things right. Over the 90 minutes, we paid dearly for individual moments. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t take any backward steps, we need to start again.

“The players have to understand that in Serie A there will be times when you’re under pressure. They have to be able to deal with that and react.”

You’ll be able to hear more from Samp’s head coach with the subtitled highlights of the conference to be published later.