AC Milan, Gattuso: 'Piatek like Robocop, Higuain knew about option-to-buy'
ON THE YOUNG MILAN: 'I feel and touch with my hand that we make some mistakes of inexperience. We are going through a good moment, the first 20 minutes are shaky but we came out in the second half. Even in the Italian Cup and with Juventus, we must grow. We face a very strong team, with a clever coach, a marpione, like Ancelotti '.
ON MILAN NOT RAZZISTA: 'I think the San Siro audience has always applauded the great champions like Koulibaly. I expect this, ours is a mature audience. If that happens, it will be a few fools, I want to see 60,000 people applauding."
ON ANCELOTTI: 'Carlo can not be followed, otherwise you do great damage in trying to imitate him. For how to manage the changing rooms, for how he managed me, you must have some skills inside. The fact of entering the heads of the players, I have been doing this job for twenty years and nobody has ever complained. You can copy and paste on the tactical aspect, not on management. Ours had become a relationship between father and son, sometimes I got angry because in important games it made me play fourth on the right, but we were listening."
ON THE FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON PIATEK: 'Piatek looks like Robocop, he says a few words. 'I want to score and break everything'. He also demonstrated it yesterday in the first training session. He has great physicality, technically he likes to attack the depth. He arrived with great enthusiasm and was surprised at how he was welcomed by Milanello and the changing room. On Higuain, I can say that it is part of the past and I do not want to talk about it anymore. He made his choice, we must move forward. I thank him for what he gave me personally, he could do something more to him and we as technical staff and team could do the same."
ON HIGUAIN AND THE WEIGHT ON THE TEAM: 'When he could not find the way to the goal the pages of the newspapers spoke only of him, there was pressure. When you do not score, it is normal for you to slaughter. This aspect has suffered. I have touched that if we did not arrive, quarters were not redeemed, but when he signed the contract he knew it. The expulsion with Juventus has remained."
ON PAQUETA ': 'The formation is not changed at this time. In the possession phase it is always the player who is close to the attacker. He can do a lot more than what he is doing. He's an atypical Brazilian, I keep saying that. It is no coincidence that he did play immediately against Sampdoria just arrived, because I saw it ready. He's a player we're expecting a lot from."
For more news, views and features, visit our homepage.