Football
Ben Gladwell, Italy correspondent 7y

Fiorentina coach Paulo Sousa: Fans right to whistle after drab draw

Fiorentina coach Paulo Sousa has been told that the club "expect more" after a 0-0 draw at home to Atalanta on Sunday.

Fans whistled the coach and his team after the result, which left Fiorentina in 14th place and just three points above the relegation zone.

The Viola had targeted a challenge for a place in next season's Champions League, and sporting director Pantaleo Corvino said they had to improve.

But Corvino stressed that he believed it was "a bad period" for the manager and his players rather than a crisis.

"As a club, we expect more from the people we have here this year who we confirmed at the club from last year and had hoped would continue to satisfy us," he told Sky Sport Italia.

"We remain convinced, however, that this period in which we are not winning is just a bad period and we are convinced that the good results will return with hard work.

"Certainly it's one of those bad periods that everybody can go through because the people are the same ones who gave us so much satisfaction.

"I'm sure it's just a rough patch. We've played 10 games and lost only two."

Sousa said he could understand the fans' frustrations after the Atalanta stalemate, telling Sky: "The whistles don't hurt me because the fans pay for their tickets to come here and when things don't go well, whistles are the best way to be critical.

"It's just a moment in which nothing is going right for us.

"We need to focus on the present to overcome this difficulty. We had two or three huge chances today which we would have scored last year, and then we would have been able to impose ourselves on the game."

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