Antonio Conte insists Inter fully deserved to knock Fiorentina out of the Coppa Italia, even though he was “forced” to debut Christian Eriksen and change system.
This is the first time the Nerazzurri have reached the Coppa Italia semi-finals since 2015-16 and they will face Napoli over two legs in February and March.
Antonio Candreva and Martin Caceres had scored, before Nicolò Barella’s well-placed volley into the bottom corner.
Antonio Conte insists Inter fully deserved to knock Fiorentina out of the Coppa Italia, even though he was “forced” to debut Christian Eriksen and change system.
This is the first time the Nerazzurri have reached the Coppa Italia semi-finals since 2015-16 and they will face Napoli over two legs in February and March.
Antonio Candreva and Martin Caceres had scored, before Nicolò Barella’s well-placed volley into the bottom corner.
“Considering all the chances we created, it’s a deserved victory,” the coach told Rai Sport.
“We are happy to go into the semi-final and face an excellent team like Napoli. We want to go forward in all competitions to gain experience and keep improving. Once again, we had plenty of chances to kill off the game and didn’t take them.”
This evening also marked the debut of Eriksen after his €20m transfer from Tottenham Hotspur, and the adoption of a new 3-4-1-2 formation.
Alexis Sanchez was the trequartista for 66 minutes, making way for the Dane.
“We did not intend to use Eriksen so soon, as he only started training with us yesterday, but Matias Vecino and Barella were the only available midfielders.
“Eriksen has character and raises the quality level of the squad. I hope to get more players back, because we really are limited in the middle.
“We tried a system with a trequartista today to deal with the absence of Stefano Sensi and Marcelo Brozovic. Eriksen can play in a few different roles and we’ll see, it could be an option, but we need to work on it a lot more.
“We were rather forced into using the three strikers together because I found out about the problems in midfield.”