Inter coach Luciano Spalletti spoke with Premium Sport after tonight’s win at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza and was visibly happy when commenting on his teams performance
What effect does it have on you being top of the league?
“What effects me is how this team performs, results and standings are not beautiful without strong teams. Tonight the team performed well, I am happy for my players because they deserve the attention. If we were lucky? We had a lot of luck today, a lot of shots could easily have ended up as a free throw.”
What happens after 3-0?
“We had played a great game, not only for 70, 60 or 50 minutes. This was an amazing game but with opponents that are strong, are well coached and did everything that they prepared for. With the quality of their passes and crosses their players get in the area.”
We could however see some players very tired, which substitutes can you rely 100% on when they enter the pitch?
“If I have to praise certain players I will find myself in trouble. Santon is returning to the player he was before his injury, Dalbert will become great but is suffering from fatigue and has to pace himself. I put Santon on the pitch because I needed someone with a strong mentality, but I have not thrown Dalbert away. Sampdoria has a strong physical structue and I had to move the team up during the final ten minutes where the non-possessive play becomes so important. Eder, I did not use as much as I should have, Joao Mario has had a problems that have restricted him to training at 100%. Ranocchia is great during training, Cancelo still has some minor issues from his previous injury and I do not want to risk anything. Candreva was great tonight.”
Is this Inter stronger than the Roma you coached last year?
“Roma is incredibly strong, they will be up there until the end of the championship. Beating Inter this year will be very hard, an Inter that always finds a way to win the games.”
What did you say to Francesco Conti?
“He is like a brother to me, we worked together like this with Baldini. He almost went on to the pitch two or three times so I went over there to kid around. Finding stuff even when you are joking around makes it difficult. But among other things he spoke about Skriniar as a most important transfer, him and Giampaolo said that Skriniar was a strong player and I trusted them.”