Antonio Conte has praised his players’ reaction against Cagliari but warned: ‘Someone should leave to play more.’
The Nerazzurri recovered from one goal down to claim an away 3-1 win over Cagliari.
“The guys deserve the praise, we were playing a good game, we created many chances in the first half, but we went one goal down. These situations can have an impact, the lads reacted well,” Conte told DAZN.
Antonio Conte has praised his players’ reaction against Cagliari but warned: ‘Someone should leave to play more.’
The Nerazzurri recovered from one goal down to claim an away 3-1 win over Cagliari.
“The guys deserve the praise, we were playing a good game, we created many chances in the first half, but we went one goal down. These situations can have an impact, the lads reacted well,” Conte told DAZN.
“A coach must be worried if his team do not create attacking actions, [Alessio] Cragno was the undisputed man of the match, Shakhtar’s goalkeeper also made good saves on Wednesday.”
When asked about Christian Eriksen’s performance, Conte preferred not to reply.
“I evaluate everyone’s performance. I don’t like to speak about single players, the general performance was positive, for what we created and for our reaction against a difficult team to face.
“There are two aspects about this game, we created many goal chances, but we couldn’t make the most of all of them. Sometimes you have to throw your heart over the obstacle. We were disappointed for two goalless draws against Shakhtar that costed us the elimination, it wasn’t easy to turn an unifair result around.”
Did he use a plan B this time?
“I joked about plan B, which, for every coach, is represented by substitutions. Sometimes you have to make the team more offensive, sometimes more defensive. When you do it, you give more space to improvisation and anything can happen.
“As I always say, one must have all the players available to do it. Some of them may be injured, or not feeling well, or they may stay on the bench just to warm it. Most of times there are judgements from the outside and who stays inside can’t say it all.”
Nicolò Barella was the MVP of the match.
“Barella is a young footballer with important qualities, he needs some self-discipline to control all the energy that he has. He was playing for Cagliari two years ago, he is improving now.
"These players can become top players, we need to work with them and try to raise the bar and make them become players who leave the mark. You only leave the mark by winning, not participating,” he added.
Are Inter credible Scudetto contenders?
“There are things to consider in an objective way, from outside you don’t see real things, both the directors and I knew all the difficulties we had at the beginning of the season.
“We knew there would not be optimal situations, we accepted and shared them, we knew there could be problems.
“We go ahead, hoping to improve something, some players can leave to have more game time. We may become less deep, but more functional.”