Milan Skriniar insists he never wanted to leave Inter last summer despite being heavily linked with a move to Tottenham.

The Slovak international fell out of favour at the end of last season and was expected to depart as Antonio Conte sought to revamp his squad.

But Skriniar has since regained his position in the Nerazzurri’s three-man defence, starting each of Inter’s last 10 games in all competitions.

Addressing the rumours publicly for the first time, the centre-back told Sport Mediaset: “It is difficult to say if I was pleased by the rumours because I wanted to stay here.

“I did not play a lot and I wasn’t too happy, but I was happy for the team which was getting results.

“Now I’m back in the team and being consistent with my performances, I’m playing a little more and I’m happy for this.”

Skriniar, who joined Inter back in 2017 from Sampdoria, then spoke on believing in winning and touched upon what he and his teammates must do.

“Each team believes they can win and we believe too, but we must be consistent with our results,” he continued.

“We have to work harder and harder, for us every match can be decisive.”

Skriniar also spoke about the Nerazzurri’s need to improve from a defensive point of view with Inter having conceded goals at a much higher rate than they did last season.

“We have to improve defensively, last year we didn’t concede all these goals” he added.

“We weren’t scoring as many last season either but we defenders must still try to concede as little as possible.”

Skriniar, who is under contract with the Nerazzurri club through to the end of the 2022-23 season, has made 14 appearances across all competitions to date this term, scoring once against Hellas Verona on 23 December.