Simone Inzaghi reveals who was supposed to take the penalty, Lautaro Martinez or Romelu Lukaku, and insists Inter ‘gave everything’ in their 2-1 defeat to Spezia. ‘We won’t sleep tonight.’
The Nerazzurri confirmed their dismal away record, dropping three precious points at the Stadio Picco against a side that had not won at home since September 2022.
It was not through want of trying, as they dominated the match, saw an early Lautaro Martinez penalty parried by Bartlomiej Dragowski and had 28 shots on goal.
“Disappointment, it will be a bad night, but on Tuesday we have a Round of 16 and clearly it hurts, but it was a different defeat to the others. We gave our all, perhaps just missed a little belief and a clinical edge in the first half, when we should’ve gone into the break ahead,” Inzaghi told DAZN.
“In football, you get no discounts and we paid for those errors. It’s not right that Inter lose to Spezia. We won’t sleep tonight. I take responsibility for the defeat, but the lads gave their all tonight. We just weren’t clinical enough.
“This is football, defeats make you stronger, we had a few too many this season, especially away from home, and naturally the result is unsatisfactory.”
Daniel Maldini scored with Spezia’s first shot on target, Romelu Lukaku equalised from the spot, only for Denzel Dumfries to immediately give away a penalty for the M’Bala Nzola winner.
It was noted that before Lautaro Martinez took the penalty, Lukaku was turning to the bench and waving his arms. Was the Belgian meant to be the designated taker?
“Lukaku and Lautaro are out two penalty takers, they were both on the field and that had never really happened before when there was a spot-kick. It’s between them to decide. Dragowski made a great save.
“I wouldn’t focus on the penalty, but more the 20-30 shots on goal that we had tonight. We should’ve done better with those. Then once we did equalise, we clearly shouldn’t have conceded another penalty.”
This was Inter’s eighth Serie A defeat in the opening 26 rounds and now a top four finish has to be considered at risk too.
It is the worst way to prepare for Tuesday’s Champions League trip to FC Porto, defending a 1-0 first leg lead in the Round of 16.
“We will return to Appiano Gentile and sleep there, so we have all the necessary time to evaluate this defeat. It’s painful, but we have to keep going.
“We saluted our fans at the final whistle, clearly they weren’t happy, but the team gave all it had. We just lacked that little bit of belief to put the ball in the net.
“It was a good start, with the right approach, we conceded the only two shots on goal, so clearly there’s something that needs adjusting. We know that we have to change the trend outside San Siro, as despite all the chances we create, we keep dropping points on our travels.
“Last season we did very differently away from home. I don’t believe in bad luck in football, you earn your luck and we weren’t determined enough in our finishing.”
How can you not have a clearly designated penalty taker?
How can you still keep having Lautaro taking these?!
Looking at the result this seemed fixed – Chinese betting behind the scenes?
The result was not fixed. Inter are simply not good enough. That’s the usual Inter loser mentality though – we lost so let’s cast aspersions on the result.