Inter players on lockdown until Saturday's match

It's a fairly common practice in Italy that when a team is in a "crisis", the club responds by calling for a ritiro, an enforced lockdown where the players stay at the training ground all week in the buildup to a match. It is supposed to help boost team morale and allow the coach more time with his players in order to figure out what is wrong and drill them into fixing their mistakes. Considering the fact that Inter have won one of their last seven Serie A matches it is not a surprise that Mancini has called for a ritiro starting today until the game on Saturday against Sampdoria.

Inter's twitter page released quotes from Mancini stating that he hoped that this move would allow his team to focus on the upcoming match and "work calmly with no distractions". For me calmness is the key word here because both the players and manager need to calm themselves on and off the pitch. Suspensions were handed down for what happened in the Fiorentina match and Medel and Telles each will miss the Sampdoria match (Medel for yellow card accumulation). Kondogbia picked up a two match ban and will miss the game Saturday and the next match against Juventus.

Hopefully whatever happens in this ritiro will help fix the slump this team has found itself in.