Nerazzurri coach Walter Mazzarri took questions from the press earlier in his media conference at the Centro Sportivo Angelo Moratti, ahead of Inter’s trip to Bergamo where they meet Atalanta in Week 10 of Serie A 2013/14 tomorrow.
The first question was about Atalanta, the team’s next opponents in the league and historically a tough fixture for Inter: “It’s always been a tricky place to go to. Not only for Inter, but especially on their own patch they’re very aggressive and focused. It’s a unique stadium, you feel the crowd. It’s a tough place to play and they’re a group of players who have been working with the same coach for a while, they play good football and have some quality players. They’re a dangerous side and we need to approach the game correctly. We need to be very focused, something I always stress, and we saw in our last match that when we’re all together and focused we can play good football and cause problems for anyone. But we’re always at risk once we relax.”
“I’ll definitely make a change, I need to work out where to play him, but Samuel will definitely play, I want to give him a chance, he’s training well and is an important player. Injury kept him out for a long time but he’ll be involved tomorrow. In terms of the other areas of the park, I still need to speak to the lads, we’ve only had a recovery session and I need to hear what they have to say. We played a great game on Saturday, aside from the slip-ups, so all the lads deserve to keep their place. We’ll look at how everyone is, if they’re close to 100% they’ll definitely play. Samuel, being left-footed could play on the left or in the centre of the back three: I’ll speak to the three from the backline to gauge their fitness levels and one will be rested, then we have Udinese four days later.”
Mazzarri had this to say about the loss of bite and concentration which saw the team concede goals on Saturday evening: “It’s another important step in terms of our progress to see where we are with regards to our character, playing away from home always comes into it and we have young players too. These are two big games which will tell us a lot about where we might go from here.”
“Palacio, to tell you the truth, is someone I always asked to sign when he was at Genoa. I’ve always liked him as a player, he has the sort of attributes I like, he moves a lot, helps out the team and has an eye for goal. I was confident that he could do well,” said Mazzarri when asked his thoughts on Palacio’s excellent start to the season. “Campagnaro needs to be fit, when you get injured you lose a bit of fitness, then it’s hard to assess things when you play every three days. I couldn’t tell you when he’ll next play, but the feeling is that he won’t be back in time for these two matches,” the coach responded to questions on Campagnaro’s chances of being involved.
The press asked the coach to assess the Nerazzurri’s season so far, as well as the current standings in Serie A: “I’m very happy with the way the lads have responded to me, it wasn’t easy. Aside from the results, I look at the performances and how the players move, and I draw satisfaction from things like that. We’ve learned how to keep the ball well, I’m very happy with that, I’m disappointed that given our performances we’ve let a few points slip along the way, we could even have a few more points in the table.”
“It’s hard to find a team in our league that wins nine out of nine, it’s an impressive record which shows the ‘anomaly’ if you will. They’re doing something which would have been hard to foresee and will be difficult to repeat, but the other sides are still keeping up a good pace. Were it not for Roma, the league table would probably be even more exciting, but Serie A is still very interesting this year.”
Mazzarri then gave his verdict on the Nerazzurri’s recent displays: “The Torino game was a bit of an anomaly, but was perhaps the only match where we started badly in terms of our approach. We were a bit caught out by some of their movement and that’s how the sending off came about. Against Roma it seemed to be an almost ‘marked’ game, as they scored with every counter attack. It was a strange match to analyse, but we were caught on the break on too many occasions, they were clinical and it all went well for them, apart from the dubious penalty. We were perfect against Cagliari, if we really want to be pernickety, someone should have got out quicker to Nainggolan, but it was the end of the match and these things happen. We were well set up at the back too. We started very well against Verona and we scored twice, and they hadn’t even crossed the halfway line until we went 2-0 up. We were playing well and the fans were enjoying some nice football, the lads might have subconsciously thought the game was won and no longer saw any danger: we need to be switched on and focus for the full 90 minutes. We took a blow with their first goal, two players attacked the forward to try and win the ball back and we naively left space in behind. Then we went 4-1 up and we started to think ahead to Tuesday’s match, we made mistakes that could have cost us dearly, that’s where we need to improve and what we need to work on, but I think the lads have got that.”
Why did Mazzarri opt out of the post-match interviews following the Torino match? “I’ve been in this job for a number of years, I know this world very well. The reason I chose not to speak after Torino was to try and keep a calm environment even though I saw things that had made me angry. Everyone has their own interests to defend, some people have criticised me, but in hindsight I think my decision not to speak was the right one.”
What’s the latest on Alvarez, Kovacic and Icardi? “Based on what I’m thinking now, if Kovacic plays, Alvarez could play as he did against Verona, otherwise he’ll play in a different position. Icardi’s not fit, he’s got a problem and he needs to manage that, he can’t train at 100%. Given our emergency up front though, he might be able to play a small portion of the game. I try to figure out the system best suited to our needs, based on the squad I have available. We need to be balanced, forward-thinking and not concede too many goals. If we play like we did in the last match with Guarin as an attacking midfielder and Alvarez, if you put someone else in the middle who’s not a ball winner, you can no longer play. I prefer to have certain attributes in the final third or on the flanks, so Kovacic couldn’t replace Cambiasso in the middle.”
Mazzarri was asked about what influence the new majority shareholder could have on the coaching staff’s work: “Time will tell. When there’s a change you can’t comment on it until you start working. You’ll need to ask him yourself, I can’t say what I might think about it. At this time I think members of the Inter family have to be happy with what’s happening on the pitch, young players progressing alongside more experienced campaigners, I think any owner should be happy with what we’re doing.”
Here’s how the Nerazzurri coach responded to those pointing to the differing statistics with Campagnaro in and out of the team: “When I was picking Campagnaro, it’s because I thought he was on better form than the others. I’ve not seen the other guys make mistakes, Rolando in this case, but it depends if you consider bad luck – like Nainggolan’s deflected shot – as mistakes. I look at the unit as a whole and at individual players and, from this point of view, I’ve not seen any great difference with or without Hugo. Football is not an exact science, I need to look forward. If a player is missing, I need to pick someone else, I can’t just cry about it. But, I’ll say it again: I haven’t noticed that one player’s gone out of the team and things have gone badly. We’ve conceded some goals in certain ways, but that’s not because a particular player is missing.”
Source: Inter.it
