Following Inter’s disappointing 2-1 loss to Cagliari, Inter boss Luciano Spalletti held his traditional post-match press conference which he started off by explaining what went wrong, particularly in the first half.

“It is not the first and probably will not be the last time that we play that badly in the first half,” he said.

“We were too timid in the first half but in the second half we reacted and created some very important chances for ourselves but we could not score from them.

“Overall, we moved the ball too slowly and we suffered from the vehement nature of Cagliari.”

Spalletti then went on to explain the reasoning behind bringing defender Andrea Ranocchia on as a striker for the second time in recent weeks.

“We have two attackers injured and when we are missing attackers then we need to do something differently. Initially I had Politano play more centrally but as for Ranocchia coming on, in my opinion, this is a normal thing.”

He concluded by speaking on Cagliari’s Nicolo Barella, a player who has drawn strong links to Inter lately.

“Barella is a good footballer but he has to finish growing. Tonight though I had to focus on my own players so I lost sight of him.”