You cant build a winning mentality in one season, or in isolation. Last year we had a number of games that we won that I feel like we would normally have lost, to be honest, and our mid-season slump wasnt anywhere near as bad as it was in previous years.
People management is tricky, and bear in mind Conte has to people manage an entire squad with (for the most part) one single strategy. Some people thrive under pressure, or negative feedback. Other people take it very badly and collapse. Some people need reassurances and to be built up, others don't benefit from that at all and always look to improve. One player might see themselves criticised in the press and then take it really badly - for example I think there was a story where once Phil Neville bought every newspaper from all the shops near him because they criticised his recent match performance. Others might say 'fuck you' and use it as motivation to put in an extra effort next match. Kinda like Lukaku, IMHO, at the start of last season when Conte said he needs to do better, and he went on to have a record breaking season.
Couple that with the fact that, every time in the last decade we've gone on an early season spurt of form (for the most part), people like Moratti come out of the fucking woodwork and start calling us scudetto contendors, and then INEVITABLY within a month we fall to bits....
This squad is one that needs sheltering and protection - that's been made clear by Marotta and Conte in the last few months I feel - coming out and saying we MUST win the scudetto is gonna make us fall apart. What we need is a really good half season, to get out of the CL group stages, and then we can start to talk about aiming higher. This team needs to win some tough games to build that mentality and confidence - games like Fiorentina will actually go a long way to building team spirit and mentality.
Which is all why I say what we might actually set as a target (between Conte and management) and what they talk about publicly are different things. And I'd have thought after the last decade of Inter that would be pretty obvious tbh
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Nostradamus
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