Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho slammed
his team after they fell to a shock 3-0 defeat to 10-man Sampdoria
in the first leg of their Coppa Italia semi-final clash and admits
he is "worried" by their form.
All of Samp's goals came in a devastating
opening half as Giampaolo Pazzini hit a double after Antonio
Cassano had opened the scoring.
It completed a bad week for Inter who were held
to a 3-3 draw by Roma at the weekend, days after a scrambled
goalless draw at home to Manchester United in their Champions
League first-leg tie, and Mourinho knows it is cause for
concern.
"We made mistakes," he said. "If you ask me if
I'm worried, I'll say yes. I'm worried because it was a match that
we started well and controlled, then we conceded a ridiculous first
goal, a second from a dead-ball situation and we should know what
to do with those balls - and then a ridiculous third
goal.
"The team gifted our opponents a lot and if you
do that then it's obvious you're going to be in for a tough
game."
Mourinho - who is currently facing disciplinary
charges for suggesting refereeing decisions were being made in
favour of specific teams - then turned his wrath on the
journalists, after one asked whether the result could have further
effect on team morale.
"There won't be any problems of this sort," he
said. "The result here won't hurt players like (Esteban) Cambiasso
and (Dejan) Stankovic, but who was on the pitch and not playing in
the league or Champions League.
"It'll hurt you, the journalists who come and
ask me why I don't play this person or that one. Now you
know."
Nelson Rivas, who had a shocking game against
United, was guilty of another awful performance last night, gifting
Cassano the opener after just nine minutes.
"A footballer who doesn't play much has to take
advantage of the games he does play, especially because they are
important games for him and not only for the team," he said. "Rivas
was not at his best, he knows that, I know that, but it's not right
to just talk about him.
"There were 11 players on the pitch, the coach
and others on the bench, we are all responsible for what happened.
Now the return leg will be more difficult for us, we have to try to
get the same result as Sampdoria did tonight."