Stankovic: “We have to be brave and confident”

Dejan Stankovic spoke on Friday about what his players need to do during the weekend clash away to Atalanta on Saturday evening.

“We need to face Atalanta with respect and without any fear. We need to show consistency in our performances, as we’ve done since the league restarted. We put in good displays against Empoli and Udinese despite being unlucky, so we mustn’t let that get us down. We’ll need to be brave and confident out on the pitch.

“We have to continue down this path,” added Stankovic. “We must try to be compact, well organised and tough. We’ve worked hard this week. Unfortunately, we need to assess where we are once again considering some major absentees. [Omar] Colley has a blow to the knee, [Abdelhamid] Sabiri has a muscle strain, so neither of them will be in the squad, but we have to overcome that kind of adversity.

“I know that our fans will be behind us in Bergamo. We saw that last Sunday before, during and after the game. We have to get some luck going our way to give them something to cheer about.”