Di Francesco: “We must bounce back by winning with a great performance”

Having endured a difficult start to the campaign, the time has come for Sampdoria to get their first win on the board, says Eusebio Di Francesco.

“We’re determined to bounce back because having no points is annoying for all of us,” the boss said to the gathered media the day before Sunday’s match with Torino. “We must win tomorrow and do it by putting in a great performance. One win can change everything. We need to fire our fans up and they will fire us up in turn.

“We haven’t been consistent enough in our first few games. We’ve lost focus in certain moments of the match. We have to build on the good things – like the first half an hour against Sassuolo, or parts of the game against Napoli. So far we’ve only been able to do it for short periods but we have to perform well for the whole 90 minutes.”

Not that it will be easy with Walter Mazzarri’s well-oiled Torino outfit the visitors at the Marassi.

“Torino are an excellent, very physical side,” Di Francesco continued. “They’ve been working together for a long time with the same coach and they have lots of good qualities.”

Victory would of course set Samp up nicely for a busy week ahead but the boss insisted he’s not looking beyond Torino at the moment.

“Fiorentina and Inter aren’t on my mind right now. We have to focus solely on tomorrow’s match.

“We’re working on the mental side of our game because that comes before anything else – before any formation or playing system.

“Individual mistakes happen sometimes but at the moment we’re paying a high price for them so we need to improve.”