Mancini fed up with Italy not winning

Italy head coach Roberto Mancini said he is tired of not winning as the country’s drought extended to five games against Ukraine.

Federico Bernardeschi’s 55th-minute opener was cancelled out by Ruslan Malinovskiy as Italy were held to a 1-1 draw by Ukraine on Wednesday.

Mancini’s tenure opened with a 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia in May but Italy have not won since, much to the frustration of the former Inter boss as pressure mounts.

“I’m fed up of not winning and so is everyone,” Mancini said. “The positive thing is that the team played good football for long periods.

“It was a friendly, so hopefully we can start winning on Sunday. It’s obvious fans are upset when their team doesn’t win, but we mustn’t listen to the jeers.

“If we had scored another goal, everyone would’ve been happy with the performance. I think it was just about the result.”

 Following a great first-half display, #Bernardeschi opened the scoring before the #Azzurri were pegged back by #Malinovskyi‘s equaliser.#ItalyUkraine 1-1 #VivoAzzurro pic.twitter.com/DCFG9JElyP

— Italy (@azzurri) October 10, 2018

Italy have only won one of their past 10 matches and Mancini added: “We need to be more clinical when we have the chance to score, because you win with goals.

“We struggled enormously to take the lead, despite all the opportunities we created, whereas Ukraine scored at their second shot.

“Unfortunately, that’s the way things are going at the moment and we need to work on it.”

Italy will now turn their attention to Sunday’s Nations League clash against Poland in Chorzow.

“We have to build on the positives from this evening. There are only four days, we have to travel too, so we’ve got to recover quickly,” Mancini said.