Photo: Thomas Salme
After having watched his team get demolished from the sidelines at the Artemio Franchi, a very humbled Andrea Stramaccioni was interviewed by Italian Sky: “It’s very easy to comment on this loss, I could never have imagined that we would be affected in this way by playing two matches in a row with the same players. This is indisputable, I can say that I saw that my Inter was too tired, that we were second to every ball. We started by playing Guarin on Pizarro but then instead the players in the middle ended up in a lot of trouble and so Guaring had to take a step down to help out in defence. Fiorentina played an excellent match and we were in trouble from the get go.”
Despite tonight’s heavy defeat Stramaccioni looked ahead: “There are no special remedies, we came from having played two great matches, in a league like this one you sometimes suffer defeats of this nature, even Milan lost to Roma with a 4-1 or a 4-2 scoreline. We weren’t able to be the same team we were on Thursday night, we’ve lost a lot of matches after having played in the Europa League. The derby will follow another midweek European cup-match, this is something to take into consideration. Those who were able to play played, I saved Gargano since he had a tiny injury problem. We’ve played 3 matches in a row with the same players and we’ve payed a much higher price than I could have imagined whilst Fiorentina gave a solid performance. This was probably due to a mistake in our squad rotation, 8 players have played a lot and have done so very well, this is not a case of puting all the blame on one player. This was a below par performance by everyone, we suffered twice as much because these players also played against Chievo. The feedback will be given to the players inside of the changing room and not outside of it. I was planning on starting with Gargano up until a few minutes before the match started when he felt a problem in his calf, but this had no impact on the result.”
Stramaccioni was also asked if Fiorentina’s tactics suprised him: “This was pretty much the same Fiorentina we played against a few months ago, the only difference was maybe that Cuadrado was able to play much higher up on the pitch thanks to the help he got from Tomovic.”
Finally the young Rome-born tactician was asked quickly about next Sunday’s derby fixture: “First we will travel to Romania, then it is time for the derby which is an incredibly important match in order for us to get back on our feet but also with regards to our position in the league since Milan have got their noses in front and Fiorentina are trailing us by a single point. It all depends on how we pick ourselves up after this loss, this is the 5th loss this season which we suffer after having played the Thursday before in the Europa League, we honour the Europa League but maybe we leave too much energy on the pitch in these matches.”