Former Inter defender turned football pundit Daniele ‘Lele’ Adani has dismissed the notion that Inter manager Antonio Conte’s recent treatment of attacking midfielder Christian Eriksen is due to a personal issue between the pair of them.
In the past few matches Conte has severely limited Eriksen’s playing time and in many peoples eyes he has humiliated him by only playing him for a few minutes at the end of games.
“In my opinion it is not a personal matter, it would not be tolerable at certain levels,” he explained in an interview with Bobo TV earlier on today.
“Of course, today Eriksen is considered as an average player, which is why he is only played in the last minutes of the match. For Conte he is a squad player. What I don’t accept is considering Eriksen as a normal player, that’s not true.”
Adani then went on to insist that Eriksen was not an unknown commodity when he arrived at Inter and everyone knew who he was.
“It’s also not true that in Italy we didn’t know about Eriksen. We all knew him. In Italy people are not stupid, as they want to make us believe.
“Eriksen did not come from the Luxembourg league, he came from the Premier League where he made a difference, being the second best player for assists after de Bruyne. People know what he did with Tottenham and for Denmark. Eriksen is a great player.”
Adani then recalled an occasion earlier on in his Inter career in which he felt that Eriksen was treated similarly to how he is being treated on a more regular basis these days.
“I remember last season, against Hellas Verona, when it was 2-1, I was wondering why he didn’t come on. Borja Valero was playing, but at 80 minutes and playing every three days, I thought that the Dane could have come in handy.
“In fact, Inter managed to make it 2-2 and only then did Eriksen come on. Back then Conte made him play only scraps of the game and did not rate him.”
This season Eriksen has made 10 appearances across all competitions to date this term but has failed to make any goal contributions.
