Florenzi: We have to keep building on this

Stephan El Shaarawy scored the opener for the Giallorossi, only to see it cancelled out by Ivan Perisic early in the second half.

“We must continue to give everything as we did tonight," Florenzi said.

"We played a good first half but then they put us under pressure in the first 20 minutes of the second. However, I think the result is a fair one. We had lost sight of our objective but we’ve put ourselves back in the hunt.

"We’re on the final stretch now and we had to continue performing as we’ve done in recent games.”

Do today’s results change the feel of the race for the Champions League spots?

“I don’t think so. As long as it’s mathematically possible, we’re all in with a shout. There are a lot of games to play. I’m not pleased with our league position, I’d like to be higher up, but we’ll continue to give 120% for this shirt.”

In the last three games you seem to have changed a lot defensively. What is Claudio Ranieri asking you to do differently from before?

“We need a bit of time to adjust to his philosophy. For example, with Eusebio Di Francesco we’d have probably pressed them differently today, meeting them higher up the pitch in the different stages of play and we could have either won, lost or drawn the encounter. Under Ranieri we have a different philosophy: we have a castle to protect and no one’s allowed inside. All 11 players have to defend. It’s taken a few games to understand that, which is normal. Now we’re reaping the rewards of this approach.”

Do you ever regret not starting to play as a full back a few years ago?

“There’s no problem, it’s a decision I’d make again one hundred times over. I’d die out there on the pitch. My motto is that from one to 11 all the positions are good. That’s the way I am: it’s normal that sometimes I want to play in another position, but I like playing there and I think it can highlight my qualities.”

Do teams run enough in Italy?

“For me, the main difference is between running well and running badly. We can actually play better than the opponents but run two kilometres less. However, if you run well, you’ll win the game.”