Henrikh Mkhitaryan feels Inter ‘deserved’ their incredible 4-3 victory away to Fiorentina, above all for their ‘character’ and refusal to give up.
It was a truly extraordinary match with seven goals and plenty of talking points, including Federico Dimarco avoiding a red card for a very high tackle on Giacomo Bonaventura in the penalty incident, Pietro Terracciano getting a fingertip to the ball on the Lautaro Martinez spot-kick and protests of a potential Edin Dzeko push on Nikola Milenkovic in the build-up to the last-gasp winner.
“The most important thing was the victory. It doesn’t matter if I scored or someone else, just as long as we picked up three very important points,” Mkhitaryan told Sky Sport Italia.
Fiorentina came back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2, then from 3-2 for 3-3, until Mkhitaryan’s last-gasp winner on a clumsy Lorenzo Venuti clearance.
“I think it was a deserved victory, we started strong and then lost our way a little and got tired, but we showed character towards the end and won the game.
“We knew it would not be easy here, as Fiorentina have a lot of quality and are a very attacking side, so it is always tough to play against them. I don’t think it’s logical that they only have 10 points this season, as they play such good football, but we fought to the end and deserved the win.”
Inter looked to be running out of steam as the game wore on, but refused to give up, and now have to take that attitude into the Champions League against Viktoria Plzen.
“I had no energy left in the final 15 minutes, but I wanted to keep going, to fight to the end. We have to take it one game at a time and give our all, not think that we need to preserve energy for the next match.”