Inter head coach Simone Inzaghi knew that his team’s first-half performance against Sassuolo at the Mapei Stadium yesterday was not good enough.
Speaking in a press conference after the match, as reported by FCInterNews, the coach acknowledged that his side had been outplayed after the first half, and that a significant change to the team’s approach was needed after the interval for the Nerazzurri to go on and win the match.
Inzaghi’s men looked to struggle to gain any kind of foothold in the match after an opening attacking flourish in the first few minutes, with Alessio Dionisi’s Neroverdi team putting in the more polished performance and well worth their one-goal advantage going into halftime.
However, Inzaghi and his players did well to find a solution to a difficult match, especially after a number of substitutions had been made early in the second half, and earned the three points with yet another comeback win.
“We made a lot of mistakes technically, we allowed counter-attacks that you cannot concede to teams like Sassuolo and we suffered,” the coach reflected on the first half.
“In the second half we came onto the pitch looking better,” he went on, “I needed energy and so I made four changes together. We were running low on energy because it was the seventh game in twenty days. It is not easy to recover while travelling all the time, but the players have always been in the game and in my opinion we have done very well.”
He explained, “We made so many technical errors which we usually don’t. Sassuolo had prepared for a week to play the match, they were physically fit and have an excellent coach. It wasn’t easy, but despite Sassuolo’s excellent pressing, we had to do better technically and manage the ball better.”
On the timing of his substitutions, Inzaghi stated that “I was angrier at the end of the first half to be honest because the first ten minutes, even before the changes, we had approached the second half better. The last half hour of the first was one to forget.”
“At the beginning I had prepared three, then I added Darmian because Boga was creating a lot of problems for us,” the coach explained of his substitutions.
He went on that “The second half was excellent right from the start. So I’m satisfied because the team is reacting to fatigue and going a goal behind in the best possible way. Of course, going behind four times in seven league matches must be analyzed and we’ll try not to let it happen again.”
The coach stated that Edin Dzeko’s impact from the bench impressed him, and stated that “I’ve always been lucky enough to have excellent strikers. Edin is doing very well, Lautaro also, Correa and Sanchez have had injury problems and are recovering in the best way. And I have to be good at alternating them at the right time.”
“I think we have made a great start in the league, we are probably missing two points that we could have scored more,” the coach concluded.
“In the Champions League we played our best game of the year against Real Madrid but sometimes the performance doesn’t bring the result and we lost,” he reflected, “in Kiev we did less well and we need to improve in the Champions League.”
