Sinisa Mihajlovic apologised for Sampdoria’s heavy defeat to Lazio, welcomed new buys and prepared to face Empoli.

It kicks off on Sunday at 14.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.

“I compliment Empoli Coach Maurizio Sarri for his work, as Empoli are one of the teams who play the best football in Italy and put a lot of opponents under pressure,” said Miha in his Press conference.

Sinisa Mihajlovic apologised for Sampdoria’s heavy defeat to Lazio, welcomed new buys and prepared to face Empoli.

It kicks off on Sunday at 14.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.

“I compliment Empoli Coach Maurizio Sarri for his work, as Empoli are one of the teams who play the best football in Italy and put a lot of opponents under pressure,” said Miha in his Press conference.

“Tomorrow we must make up for the defeat to Lazio and the players know what I expect from them. That performance was without doubt our worst of the season, where we got almost everything wrong. There was no intensity, no reaction to going behind, but the lads assured me it was just a bump in the road.”

That 3-0 hammering on Monday night was only Samp’s second defeat of the campaign, but a new season starts with Manolo Gabbiadini sold to Napoli and the likely arrival of Luis Muriel from Udinese.

“Stefano Okaka will probably be rested, so Bergessio will start instead. He seems motivated and I hope he’ll show me the Gonzalo I knew at Catania.

“Muriel was the only name I wanted to replace Gabbiadini, so I want to thank the club for bringing him to Sampdoria and once again keeping their promises. If he breaks through, he can really become one of the best and I feel Sampdoria is the ideal environment for him.

“A lot depends on me and whether I am able to find the right ‘medicine’ to motivate him. I am sure that I can do it.”

Another new arrival is Joaquin Correa, who had his first training session with the Blucerchiati today.

“He is a promising youngster who hasn’t trained for 25 days, so we’ll have to wait for him to find match fitness.

“There is the danger of getting distracted by transfer gossip, but as professionals we must be able to resist that. I will only field those who are focused and will not accept distraction.”

Sampdoria squad for Empoli: Da Costa, Romero, Viviano; Cacciatore, De Silvestri, Fornasier, Gastaldello, Regini, Romagnoli, Silvestre; Duncan, Krsticic, Ivan, Lulic, Obiang, Palombo, Rizzo, Soriano; Bergessio, Djordjevic, Eder, Okaka, Wszolek

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