Ranieri wants positive minds to win alike

Inter coach Claudio Ranieri has called on his men to adopt a positive mindset, starting with Saturday’s Serie A meeting with Fiorentina.

Speaking ahead of the visit of the Florence-based club, former Chelsea, Roma and Juventus boss Ranieri said the only cure for poor form is a shift in the way his players approached matches.

Inter are winless in two games in December, and are sitting a lowly 15th on the Serie A table.

“When things go wrong you must strive to see things in a positive light to ‘rebalance’ the situation. We are in a moment where help from the fans is important,” Ranieri said. “United, we will come out of it.”

“Our strong performances should be at home, but despite all our efforts we are failing. We’re working hard and the fans are not abandoning us. In times of need, we need the fans.”

Ranieri was asked if his continued reshuffling of tactical systems had negatively impacted on Inter’s performance, but he insisted the changes were not purely based on personal accord, but also due to external influences.

“It might be a good excuse. In modern football, it is always changing – we have changed little in terms of formation and we were forced to change because we have not had all the players available,” he said.

“This team knows how to change formation and we must not make excuses. We’re missing the goal, this is true, but we must be more careful. The boys cannot be criticised for anything against CSKA (Moscow, to who Inter lost 2-1 on Wednesday) the performance was positive, despite the result.”