Roberto De Zerbi said Sassuolo ‘deserve more’ than the 43 points collected so far but praised his team for sitting right behind the top seven in Serie A.

The Neroverdi sit eight in Serie A ahead of the match against Fiorentina and De Zerbi claims the ‘value of the position’ has increased due to the several injuries throughout the season.

“Eighth place is a lot, perhaps it’s the maximum of what we could have achieved,” De Zerbi told Sassuolo’s official channel.

Roberto De Zerbi said Sassuolo ‘deserve more’ than the 43 points collected so far but praised his team for sitting right behind the top seven in Serie A.

The Neroverdi sit eight in Serie A ahead of the match against Fiorentina and De Zerbi claims the ‘value of the position’ has increased due to the several injuries throughout the season.

“Eighth place is a lot, perhaps it’s the maximum of what we could have achieved,” De Zerbi told Sassuolo’s official channel.

“If we then consider what happened, the emergency. [Francesco] Caputo we only had the first eight to nine games, [Gregoire] Defrel too, [Domenico] Berardi has been out for several games, [Jeremie] Boga had a complicated year and scored three goals in 20 games.

“It explains the complexity of what happened, and it gives even more value to the position we are occupying and that we have occupied almost the whole year.

“But there are eight games to go, and no kind of discussion is closed yet.”

The coach said Domenico Berardi and Gregoire Defrel are back in action tomorrow, but that he must most likely cope without Manuel Locatelli.

“Tomorrow, Berardi and Defrel are back, I don’t know if they can start or if they will play during the game,” he said.

“We will probably lose Locatelli, because he had an issue and I don’t know what the doctors will tell me.

“We are recovering [Mehdi] Bourabia, he is an important player for us. But we have a strang and complete swquad.

“[Giacomo] Raspadori and [Hamed] Traore are not alternatives, but starters. They have a different age, they have a different management than a 28-year-old or a 30-year-old, but the team have shown that they can make up for heavy absences.”

De Zerbi said he can’t imagine taking a place from Napoli, Roma or Lazio in the top seven of Serie A.

“The first seven, beyond the gap of points that there is to eight, ninth and 10th, it’s a separate championship,” he said. “Imagining Lazio, Napoli and Roma not among the top seven is difficult, but it’s also true that 11 points behind could be less, for what we have done on the pitch.

“In other words, 43 points for what we did are few. Then maybe nothing changed the in the stanings but 43 points, for what we did, we could have had more than 50 points easily.

“But I look at my own house, I look at what we have done, what we have created, and I immediately don’t think I’m saying too much in our favour. Since we don’t have the points, something is obviously missing.”

The Neroverdi coach then looked at tomorrow’s opponents and said he expects an even game.

“It’s a team that on paper and everything else is to be considered at our level,” he said. “We have a different ranking because we have been working together for many years.

“We have not distorted how they have in recent years. It’s a different project, maybe with less time than ours, but Fiorentina have quality players in the team.

“They have [Dusan] Vlahovic, [Franck] Ribery, and [Christian] Kouame on the bench. With [Erick] Pulgar in the middle, [Sofyan] Amrabat, [Gaetano] Castrovilli, [Giacomo] Bonaventura.

“They are a quality team that are going through a delicate period.”

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