Inter Milan manager Cristian Chivu confirmed that Lautaro Martinez suffered a ‘serious’ injury during tonight’s clash against Bodo/Glimt.
Speaking to Prime Video via FCInterNews, the 45-year-old sparked immediate concern among fans over Lautaro’s fitness.
Despite entering the field in high spirits after winning six consecutive games in all competitions, Inter faltered at the Aspmyra Stadion.
Indeed, Kjetil Knutsen’s side claimed a stunning 3-1 victory in the first leg of this UEFA Champions League playoff tie.
Therefore, Inter will have a mountain to climb when the two sides lock horns at San Siro next week.
Furthermore, Cristian Chivu could be without his captain in the return fixture.
Lautaro Martinez had to leave the pitch midway through the second half due to injury, with Marcus Thuram taking his place.
However, the Argentine could be facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
As such, it’s a near-certainty that the 28-year-old will not be at Chivu’s disposal for the upcoming Serie A clash against Lecce.
Inter Milan Boss Cristian Chivu Confirms Lautaro Martinez Got Injured vs Bodo/Glimt
“We’ve lost Lautaro” Chivu conceded after the game. “He got injured.
“But there are other players with issues as well, and we’ll evaluate them tomorrow. Lautaro’s injury is quite serious.”
Despite Inter’s disappointing second-half performance, Chivu refused to criticize his team.
“The team gave their all and showed a good attitude” he insisted. “We lost some balls and paid the price on the counter.
“But despite the difficulties, we tried our best. I don’t want to make excuses.
“I can’t blame my players for their effort. We were caught out by their well-executed transitions.”
“We asked for pressure on the ball carrier,” he added. “That wasn’t the problem.
The issue was losing possession in transition, which left us exposed defensively. They’re fast, technical, and move better on this pitch.
“That’s not an excuse.
“We had that chance at 1-1 that we could have managed better or had a bit of luck with. Then, in a few minutes, we conceded two identical goals.”
Furthermore, Chivu remains confident about Inter’s chances of turning this tie on its head.
“We need to assess how we are,” he claimed. “We play Lecce in three days, and then we’ll have time to focus on the second leg.
“Everything is still open; there’s the second leg. We knew they could hurt us on the break. We’ll fight to get through to the next round.”
We will deliberately drop out of CL in order to chase scudetto and coppa, since we have a good chance to win both. By the selection of the starting XI last night it was more than obvious thay we don’t want to push this year in CL.
I don’t expect win 2:0 next week. I expect again rotations to keep Serie A progress stable.
how can a club deliberately give up round 16 of the UCL?! What kind of a club would that be? And how can the so called fans prefer that we intentionally drop out of any of the competitions??!! The problem here is that both the club and a considerable number of fans do not have any ambition and enjoy mediocricy.
Tonight has been a poor showing for chivu – one of few. Poor team selection, and this injury just really stings on top.
Essentially we will be relying solely on a teenager and Dimarco to get us over the line for the scudetto.
Hopefully zielinksi can stay fit
2 goals is easy to over turn in Milan.
At least we will see a highly attacking team with our main wingbacks back and Hakan in middle with Z and Bare.
Plenty of goals in us with Espos, Bonny and Markus. Add in Diouf as well. Just don’t start Acerbi as he has lost nearly every game started this season. DeVrij is better in the center now than Acerbi. Bisseck back in will be a massive threat at corners as well against a pretty short Glint team.
it will be exciting.
if we won today, we would have seen a game in Milan where we would sit back and try to defend the lead…..boring.
can’t wait for this next CL game.
good positive thinking
no way we win with 2 goal difference, this was a complete psychological and physical collapse, we won’t be able to turn the things around. It’s a question whether we will be able to win at all. We need a market revolution in the summer but given how stingy our owners are, we can expect that we wil be even less competitive next season..
how’s that chivus fault.. ? we got promised lookman and other big names, and then oaktree pocketed the profits of the UCL and gave us henrique and diouf.