Luciano Spalletti has revealed the reasoning behind his decision to bring on Radja Nainggolan over Borja Valero when Marcelo Brozovic left the field through injury as part of his post-match press conference after Inter’s 0-0 draw with Atalanta.

“Nainggolan came on instead of Borja for the same reason that D’Ambrosio played over Cedric and Asamoah over Dalbert because what could have happened, since Atalanta go on the attack man v man and that we could have troubled them with the insertion of an additional man, like what happened with Vecino in the beginning of the match

“Nainggolan is a master of doing those things and I wanted to win so that’s why I put Nainggolan on.”

He then spoke on the team’s performance.

“We performed well tonight. The team’s determination and the collaboration between teammates are fundamental.

He concluded by discussing the difficulty that exists when it comes to predicting how the Serie A standings might end up come the end of the season.

“It’s an unpredictable league with peaks and troughs, there’s no coherent pattern. We don’t know what the next results will be so we have to move forward and put in positive performances and get points.”