The reason that Inter forward Joaquin Correa was taken off during the second half of this evening’s Serie A win over Hellas Verona was as a precaution to avoid injury.
This according to head coach Simone Inzaghi, who explained to InterTV that the main motivation behind making the switch was to ensure that the Argentine would not pick up a physical problem.
Inzaghi made the decision midway through the second half of the 2-0 win at the San Siro to remove Correa, throwing on Robin Gosens in his place to slot in at left wing-back and moving Ivan Perisic to Correa’s second striker position.
The 27-year-old had largely impacted the match well, having started in attack in place of the suspended Lautaro Martinez, but the coach noted that he was dealing with a knock.
Inzaghi decided that the best thing would be to be prudent and substitute Correa off rather than run the risk of seeing him pick up another injury with the team already 2-0 up.
“We needed a big match from him today,” he said. “Correa is an important player for us, he was doing very well, now he needs to be on the pitch, he took a blow to knee and my fear was that he would run badly to compensate, that’s why I substituted him off.”
Of the psychological impact of beating Juventus last Sunday he said that “We needed a big match like the one in Turin, a direct clash against a top side.”
“We had a few more days to prepare for this one,” he continued, “the guys did well with their approach, we controlled the match and risked little.”
“We knew that of we hadn’t won today we would have cancelled out the great match we played against Juventus,” he added. “We prepared in the best way possible, the guys played well.”
And of the performance by the midfield, Inzaghi said that “Today giving names would not be right, both the starters and the substitutes did very well,”
“I am thinking for example of D’Ambrosio, but also Bastoni, Vidal, Gosens,” he said. “I got an excellent response from everyone, we have to continue like this because two victories are not enough.”
