APPIANO GENTILE – Walter Mazzarri is ready to face his past when Inter travel to Sampdoria tomorrow and a stadium that will be a "cauldron of fans firing up their team". He’s spent a week preparing his own side to pick themselves up after a run of three draws, a week in which time has been spent going over the mistakes made in recent outings. The coach explained: "It’s part of a coach’s job to analyse things and help players learn from mistakes that stem from a tactical or organisational problem. We do that after every match to help us improve and grow. Then you get mistakes of a different nature and in those cases you try to talk to the players on a personal level."

Addressing the gathered media at the Centro Sportivo Angelo Moratti this morning, Mazzarri then reflected on the season as a whole: "There have been lots of times when we didn’t get the result we deserved, although at times we’ve shot ourselves in the foot by making schoolboy errors. But looking at the overall picture, how we set ourselves out on the pitch, we’ve always done pretty well. We have to work on ourselves because we’ve often determined the course of game with our own good or bad approach. I remain confident though. In terms of our performances, I think we’re ready, even though I’ve seen plenty of games this year in which we’ve made lots of mistakes We need to be more clinical."

Among the questions put to the coach were several enquiring about individual players, from Icardi to Kovacic and D’Ambrosio.

Quizzed about the hostile reception former Blucerchiati man Icardi may receive tomorrow, Mazzari replied: "We’re helping him to grow and this will be a test of his maturity. He just needs to focus on the task at hand. Situations like this should only motivate him more.

"Kovacic is a talented player. Obviously he’s still very young but I think he’s understood some of the things we’ve been working on with him all season. His finishing and his final ball have improved and he’s more aware both in the attacking and the defensive phase of play. He’s an asset for Inter and he’ll be important for us next season too.

"D’Ambrosio is another one who’s coming on in leaps and bounds and he has a great future ahead of him."

The Nerazzurri manager also discussed the state of the Italian game: "At this moment in time we have to accept that we’re going through a recession period in Italy compared to other countries. We all need to be a bit patient and try to achieve things through hard work, because you can’t just go out and snap up top players. I’m sure we can get back to being competitive by working this way. It’s probably something I was destined to do in my career but it doesn’t scare me; it spurs me on."

Commenting then on Massimo Moratti’s visit to Appiano Gentile yesterday, Mazzarri said: "It was a nice to see honorary president Moratti. We chatted about things as we always do. We shared our thoughts on a number of matters but what we said remains between us."