ROBERTO MANCINI, the Inter Milan manager, last night admitted his players are tired after an exhausting run of matches in Serie A, the Coppa Italia and Europa League, writes Matthew Lindsay.
Mancini's side played their sixth game in under three weeks against Cagliari away in Sardinia in a league game on Monday night and scraped a narrow 2-1 win.
And the former Manchester City boss has warned his players they can't afford to switch off in the second leg of their Europa League last 32 tie with Celtic.
Because he believes the Scottish champions will fight to the last minute after being impressed with them in the 3-3 draw at Parkhead last Thursday night.
He said: "It's normal to be tired when you have come off a European match. Eight of the players played in both the Celtic and Cagliari matches. The fatigue is felt - especially when you play matches close together as happened between the two cup ties and Cagliari.
"We have lost three late goals in recent games to Napoli, Torino and Celtic. I have told the players they must keep total concentration - but the opponents also deserved credit.
"If you win three league games in a row, you are hoping for a week of peace. But we have not had time to relax as we have played a game every three days.
"After good performances and results, we can prepare well for an important match. Three wins doesn't change anything but it does give you confidence.
"When you lose games and don't get results, there is despair. Now, there results are coming. But we cannot relax at all against Celtic - a minute can change everything in this tie."
Mancini added: "The concentration must last until after the game on Thursday. The game will not be easy, you need the utmost concentration.
"We cannot make one mistake because Celtic will never give up - even if they go behind. We saw that in the first game over in Glasgow."
Mancini is optimistic the crowd in the San Siro can play a part in propelling Inter into the next round of the competition.
He said: "The San Siro crowd has always had its weight in helping the team and from them I would not expect anything less in the second leg.
"There will be a lot of people at the game and they can push us through. But it all depends on what we do."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article