Giampaolo: “Stay calm and bounce back”

Marco Giampaolo has called for calm in the Doria camp following two consecutive defeats as he feels his team are doing the right things.

The Blucerchiati host Udinese on Thursday four days after narrowly losing to Chievo.

“I can confirm what I said right after the Chievo match,” the coach began at his pre-match media conference. “We’ve analysed the athletic data and the performance data and we played one of our best games of the season – if not our very best. Apart from a couple of technical errors and perhaps not being quite clinical enough we did a lot of good things.

“Now we have this chance to wipe the slate clean and get going again. If we can win tomorrow, we’ll have had an excellent first half of the season. We’ve had some highs and lows but we’ve also built up a tremendous rapport with the fans.

“We want to put all our energy into tomorrow’s game so that we can bounce back after losing two in a row.”

Giampaolo also had praise for his opposite humber, Gigi Delneri, who has masterminded Udinese’s recent climb up the table.

“Delneri’s teams are always very recognisable and I’ve learnt a lot from him. Udinese don’t look like a typical Delneri side yet but they’re very pragmatic and they’re excellent on the break.

“We need to keep things calm and move the ball around well or it could end up being a very difficult game because they’re good at crowding you out. We’ll need to be patient and keep our wits about us.

“Sampdoria can compete if we have everything running like clockwork – if the tyres, the engine and everything else is in place. We seemed to lose some of our focus in the week before Chievo but we’ve worked well these last four days. I’m relaxed going into tomorrow’s game.”