Inter coach Luciano Spalletti stopped by Premium Sport to share his thoughts after having watched his team beat Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta by 2-0 at home at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milano’s San Siro district.
You encouraged the team in the tunnel and the team showed a more nasty face today?
“Inter has its face and its identity. Tonight we saw a mature team play, a team that knows it will have to wait for the right moment, that knows where to go and that knows what to do in order to play according to the game plan.”
Gasperini thinks that Icardi was the deciding factor today, do you agree?
“He is very strong, but I always like to think that the victories is because of the team. We did not concede much today and were in their faces every time they started an attack. We had a good distance between every part of the team which gave Icardi the opportunities to score.”
Today you replaced a player for the first time in five matches, does Inter have enough gas in the tank to keep it up all the way?
“We are always monitoring the players to see if a change is needed, we need to score goals but we also have to run a lot, like Icardi did, in order to create chances and help out in the defensive phase and recuperate the ball close to our area. If one player fails to do that, this means another player has to work twice as hard. We have not changed that much recently because the team is in an equlibrium.”
We saw a mature team in three phases
“It is all about what everybody does, if the team is under pressure it is important being able to go for the long ball so everybody can get back to their correct positions. The team did that well today, maybe we did not play exactly like we wanted to during short periods, but all in all a good performance. In the middle of the first half we had to use two midfielders since Atalanta were passing the ball well and had the advantage in midfield which made us tired.”
Are you ok with Inter being the antidote to Napoli?
“When we win I am ok with everything, all labels are ok. One label could be a predator in the penalty area that knows how to take advantage of everything that is given to him. Should that be the first goal from set pieces this means that he is really good.”
