At worst, he will still celebrate Christmas in first place. Mancini, however, doesn't even want to consider the possibility of ending the year without winning, even more so by playing at the San Siro. Against "his" Lazio, the Inter coach wants to continue on the road to success, to reiterate to his pursuers that Inter won't give up first place easily. Yet Mancini, despite the four-point lead over Fiorentina and Napoli, prefers to hide, considering other teams the real favorites for the Scudetto: “The top three will be Juventus, Napoli and Roma or Fiorentina. They think otherwise, but we don't care. Juve has achieved a series of important victories: in past years they have always won with great gaps. It took the new players a while to get to know each other, now they're in tune and the team is going". Mancini, not surprisingly, last week compared his Inter to a "500 latest model", a small car that would not hold a candle to Juve: "They are a Mercedes, a station wagon".
A quick joke on the sacking of the great ex Mourinho ("It should be put in the budget if you are a coach. But I don't know the story. Chelsea weren't doing well, but it wasn't my every day interest"), because the thought it's aimed at Lazio (“Team with values, even if it's having a difficult time. We'll have to be perfect”) and at what will be starting from January: “We'll resume in Empoli and it won't be easy. The second leg will be very difficult, we all have direct matches away from home in the second leg, of course if you always score points with the small and medium-sized teams it is essential to get to the top. Scudetto? We have another goal (the Champions League, ed), then we'll see at the end". An end that, going forward at this rate, could also be tricolor.
At Milanello, on the other hand, Mihajlovic knows that the only way to celebrate Christmas well is to win against Frosinone, so as not to fuel the rumors of his exemption yet and look towards the second half of the championship with optimism. "I would like to be Harry Potter, but unfortunately I don't have a magic wand", tries to joke the Rossoneri coach, who thinks about what he has done so far and what awaits him starting from January: "So far it hasn't been an easy season - said the Serbian in conference - but partly I expected it. If we had won against Verona last Sunday, we would have an average of two points per game, which was enough last year to get to the Champions League. We have drawn matches that we should have won, but since the defeat against Napoli we have found our balance and the group is united: this is demonstrated by the fact that today De Jong and Kucka also trained with us, despite being disqualified for tomorrow, thus giving up the early holidays. We only lost in Turin against Juventus. In my opinion, the team has ample room for improvement. It can be traced back. Sure, I thought I had a few more points, at least four."
Frosinone's away game is far from simple ("To take the 3 points we have to win individual duels. We are stronger, but saying it is not enough. If someone thinks it will be an easy match, they are very wrong because Frosinone scored 13 points out of the 14 he has at home"), to move to Matusa he will need the best Milan: "I showed these figures to the lads: we are the 4th team in Italy for what we create and the 11th for how much we exploit them, we are the 4th for shots on goal, but we are 12th-13th for accuracy in shots on goal. You need to have personality and precision in your plays. We must try to miss fewer passes and be more precise and cynical forward. In Genoa we should have closed it earlier. The whole team works well in the defensive phase, but when there are opportunities they have to be exploited and goals have to be scored."
Mihajlovic also formalized the farewells of Suso ("He went to Genoa") and Nocerino ("Someone will have to leave, there are too many"), hoping for the full recovery of those players who played little or nothing: "Nobody talks about Menez, but he scored 16 goals last year and we never had it. We didn't have Niang for 3-4 months, Bertolacci was absent for a few matches. And Balotelli we only had for a race and a half."
Three points against Frosinone would serve as never before to give morale and confidence to the whole environment, and to spend the break with the conviction that with the new year there will also be a new Milan.
