Milan boss believes European qualification is still on the cards

After a solid thumping at the hands of Sampdoria, Milan are clinging to the top-half of the Serie A table and could see themselves fall further if things do not turn around.

However, Vincenzo Montella is ever the optimist and fully believes that his team can still qualify for European competition this season. Montella is of the opinion that his Milan team are capable of dominating other teams, but things haven’t fallen into place just yet for his rossoneri side.

"I saw a great game from my team but we needed to speed things up in the second half," Montella said. "We could have done better in the final third and from the point of view of our opportunities. But I can't blame the players -- they put in a good performance.”

As for Milan’s recent form, Montella discussed this with Milan TV and believes that if the rossoneri show more pride and fight in their play, they might just be able to turn things around:

"I always try to think positive. My mission is to bring the fans back to the stadium, and I think we're building a winning mentality, which is in AC Milan's DNA. We already did something great by beating Juventus and winning the Supercup in Doha, but we have to put that behind us and continue working, focusing on our style of play. We have to keep calm and show great hunger because now we have to show our pride to end this negative spell".