Ranieri refuses to get carried away

Inter Milan coach Claudio Ranieri was reluctant to place too much importance on his team’s 2-0 win over Fiorentina in Serie A.

An inconsistent start to the season means Inter are still playing catch up to the league leaders in Italy’s top flight.

Goals from Giampaolo Pazzini and Yuto Nagatomo secured all three points from Saturday’s home match against Fiorentina at San Siro.

But Inter remain mid-table, well off the pace of league leaders Juventus and with plenty of work still to do if they are to salvage their campaign.

“Yes, I agree (it is a good win), but I wouldn’t define it ‘the match of the turning point’ – we said that too many times,” Ranieri said.

“Better if we leave turning points aside and go on straight on our track.”

“It was a good match, my players had a lot of determination, they fall down but have the strength to pick themselves up again and fight.”

“I want to thank my supporters, I asked them to help us in this difficult phase, because we had given a lot to Milan and Italian football.”

Inter had lost two matches in succession ahead of the visit of Fiorentina.

They went down 1-0 to Udinese on December 8, before losing 2-1 to CSKA Moscow in the Champions League, with both defeats in front of their own fans.

And Ranieri was proud of the way his players recovered from those disappointments and returned to winning ways on Saturday.

“We played a good match, I’m satisfied,” he said.

“It wasn’t easy because Fiorentina were strong on the pitch and they managed to shut us out very well, but we really had the desire for victory.”

“We didn’t lose heart after the Udinese game, or the CSKA Moscow game, we wanted to fight for any ball.”

“I’m happy both with the regulars’ performance and with the younger players. I’m also happy Fiorentina didn’t score. That was important.”

“As I’ve already said, we need to take it easy, this season we’re not on a motorway, we’re slowly going on a country road full of holes, mud and stones and sometimes we stop, let’s hope we can find our motorway.”