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.”
Please do not go coach the national team yet…Inter needs you.
In January Santon needs to go and Nagatomo can be used as back up with a new guy comin . I always liked Santon but sometimes they have to do what is better for the team .
How did santon do last nite guys? is he any good?
he make me miss nagatomo.. LOL
He did well. People are full of shit. He won key aerial duels, almost always beat his man, had a good passing percentage, tackled well and ran like crazy. His link up with Perisic was rusty as expected.
He was good for a guy that played his first 90 minutes in forever.. He’ll definitely improve. Don’t listen to the haters.
Ain’t no hater sweetheart but he has been at Inter forever and yet hasn’t found his best meanwhile someone else more useful can be at his place .
Good performance for a first starter. He needs to link with Perisic better though. Better that Nagatomo (which to be fair, had good performances for his level ). I would really need to see Dalbert though.