Luciano Spalletti reflected on Inter’s 1-0 victory over Udinese this evening and firstly spoke on the performance of Mauro Icardi, who scored Inter’s goal.
“When Mauro is playing like that it puts everything in to place, he is the perfect striker. He pulls opposition defenders out of position and then goes to attack the space because there is not always the possibility of playing high balls and in the past two games he has done it perfectly. His penalty? He saw the goalkeeper move early and he was 100% sure about it,” Spalletti said in an interview with Sky Sport.
He then went on to discuss whether he thought Inter may never have scored given the amount of chances they failed to capitalise on before the goal.
“When you miss these chances you turn to a moment that is far from brilliant, then you become too scholastic. We did OK, but didn’t have the right level of intensity. The ball has to be flung towards the goal, not passed slowly to give time for the opposition defence to reorganise. Aside from the start of the second half, when we got a bit unbalanced in a bid to break the deadlock and send a signal this game had to be won, we otherwise controlled the match. At the end we lost two or three dangerous balls that gave Udinese courage and made our fans feel breathless. We reached the opposition byline four or five times but without the quality we needed. We need that malice to get the most out of our games, while we sometimes mess up situations that we have no reason to.”
Spalletti went on to speak on the difference Joao Mario has made to the Inter midfield lately.
“Joao Mario’s performances are getting better. He has specific characteristics but his problem is that he is always calm and plays every move at the same tempo. He can’t quite speed it up or slow it down depending on the circumstances. He can lend a hand, especially given our busy schedule and we are fortunate to have him.”
