Inter coach Stefano Pioli was excited by what he saw from his team in their win over Fiorentina, but he expects further improvement.

A fast start set up Inter's 4-2 victory at San Siro on Monday before Mauro Icardi completed his brace to seal the win late on.

Pioli, who enjoyed his first win at the helm, saw the potential of his team, particularly early on.

"We did lots of good things today, especially at the start of the game," he told a news conference.

"We got our approach right and if we play as a team and stick together we have the potential to be very successful. It's when we stop playing as a team that we start running into trouble."

Inter struck three times in the opening 20 minutes through Marcelo Brozovic, Antonio Candreva and Icardi.

Despite a Nikola Kalinic goal, Inter appeared set to cruise to victory when Gonzalo Rodriguez saw red in the first half.

But a Josip Ilicic effort made for a nervy finish before Icardi sealed the three points for Inter.

Pioli added: "First and foremost we need to work on our mentality. We have to learn to dig deep and know when to hold on because there are always two teams out there.

"The lads are working really hard, but we need to think a bit more clearly at times and understand that we can't play at the same tempo for the whole 95 minutes. We'll get better at that with time.

"We didn't maintain possession as well as we could have in the second half. I saw lots of good things but also some not so good things that we already knew we have to work on.

"The players need confidence but they've got the ability to play an attacking brand of football. We want to be bossing matches and putting opponents under the cosh."