Claudio Ranieri warns that Cagliari cannot always need a slap in the face to wake up and mount a comeback after their 2-1 defeat to Torino. ‘We make inexplicable errors.’
The Sardinians were 2-0 down by half-time on home turf to goals from Duvan Zapata and Samuele Ricci, while the wonderful Nicolas Viola curler was too little, too late.
Speaking to Sky Sport Italia, Ranieri was asked if this poor start was also due to the atmosphere in the Unipol Domus stadium, where emotional tribute had been paid to club icon Gigi Riva before kick-off.
“The lads were affected by that, but that doesn’t take away from the fact we often end up in games like this,” said the coach.
“Against Bologna too, we needed to concede a goal before we actually started playing the way we can. This team has a great spirit, we reacted and tried everything we could to equalise. I thank them for never giving up, you can’t always complete the comeback.”
Polish defender Mateusz Wieteska had a bit of a nightmare, making mistakes on both goals and almost scoring an own goal too, while Duvan Zapata seemed to bully defenders off the ball far too easily.
“Unfortunately, these are congenital issues and we are trying to work on them. We must work on them if we want to remain in Serie A, because too often we make errors in defence that are just inexplicable.
“They have the spirit to never give up and we will fight to the end, but when you make a mistake in Serie A, you pay for it.”