Inter Milan vs Chievo preview - Mancini unhappy with Inter

Inter Milan may now have European football in their sights again but head coach Roberto Mancini has laid into his players for behaving brainlessly in recent weeks.

With five games of the Serie A season remaining the Nerazzurri appear to have turned a corner and fifth place, which offers a route into the Europa League, is only three points away.

They would be further adrift had they not beaten Udinese 2-1 on Tuesday, however, and Mancini was amazed by the lack of concentration he witnessed from his team when they found themselves with a two-man advantage.

Udinese lost two players to red cards but looked good for a late equaliser in front of a screaming Mancini.

He told the Corriere dello Sport: "I don't understand why after we went 2-1 up and they lost two men some of my players decided to stop playing and started to fool around.

"Do we need to talk about why that is not a good thing?

"If you can't play better with 11 men against nine than with 11 against 11 then what is going on?

"It's because sometimes they just do not think - the brain is made for thinking with and it should be used.

"After we made it 2-1 I would say four or five players just started fiddling about."

Jonathan, Dodo, Zdravko Kuzmanovic, Marco Andreolli and Hugo Campagnaro are all on the treatment table at San Siro while Sunday's visitors Chievo are without Federico Mattiello and Ervin Zukanovic.

A 1-0 victory over Cagliari on Wednesday night secured the Flying Donkeys' place in the top flight for next season and boss Rolando Maran was quick to praise his hard-working team.

"The guys have gone on a fantastic run," he said. "They have worked so hard since I arrived and so it is only fair that they can celebrate this achievement.

"For now we will focus on enjoying our survival, then we will look at what else we can do in the future."

Chievo last won this fixture on their barnstorming arrival in the top flight back in 2001, but they have since taken only three points from 11 attempts.