Bryan Cristante reveals the Roma strategy that almost worked in their visit to Inter, but was undone by ‘an avoidable goal.’
It was almost constant attack from the Nerazzurri against a decimated side at San Siro, with Hakan Calhanoglu hitting the crossbar.
The deadlock was only broken at the 81st minute when Federico Dimarco rolled across the face of goal for Marcus Thuram to tap in, anticipating Diego Llorente.
Carlos Augusto also rattled the frame of the goal in the final minutes, while the only genuine Roma attack of the match was a Cristante header saved by Yann Sommer.
“We were a bit short on energy, as we don’t have many options at the moment, so we aimed to wait for Inter and hit them on the counter, it’s a pity about that late goal.
“Inter are a very strong team, they certainly have a larger squad than we do. It’s always the same players all the time, we played on Thursday, so we didn’t have the resources to press them high up the pitch for 90 minutes.
“As we said, the strategy was to hold out and then win it late on. We conceded an avoidable goal and after that it became difficult to get back on track.”
Cristante has been filling in for the defence during the injury crisis, but today was back in midfield.
“I tried to use my header to break the deadlock. A few centimetres the other way and it would’ve been 1-0 for us, a very different game. It’s always easy with hindsight.”
Jose Mourinho was sitting out a touchline ban and watching the game from the press box at San Siro, so did he send a message after the final whistle?
“We have not yet spoken to the coach.”
Mou said over the last few days that Inter have such a large squad they ought to “win every season by 20 points” at the top of the Serie A table.
“Inter can certainly afford to rest players every three days and make changes at the hour mark, so in that sense they are a different level to the others in Serie A.”
The build-up was overshadowed by the hostile welcome Inter ultras planned for Romelu Lukaku, blowing whistles at his every touch to ‘make his life hell’ on the pitch, but Cristante thought it was ultimately ineffective.
“We knew the atmosphere would be like this, I don’t think it made much difference.”