Luciano Spalletti felt Inter and Milan “honoured the Derby della Madonnina” with a 3-2 thriller and hailed Lautaro Martinez. “We’ve found the striker.”
The Nerazzurri leapfrogged their city rivals into third place with this evening’s victory at San Siro, just days after the Europa League exit to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Luciano Spalletti felt Inter and Milan “honoured the Derby della Madonnina” with a 3-2 thriller and hailed Lautaro Martinez. “We’ve found the striker.”
The Nerazzurri leapfrogged their city rivals into third place with this evening’s victory at San Siro, just days after the Europa League exit to Eintracht Frankfurt.
“When you put in a bad performance, go out of a tournament and everyone jumps on you, if you don’t clarify what happened and what needed to be fixed, you risked a hangover from that,” the Coach told Sky Sport Italia.
“As I said at the time, we had to work on roles and behaviour, a team approach to forget everything that happened before. I saw that transformation.”
Spalletti was asked whether Inter play better without Mauro Icardi, but shrugged it off and turned the focus to his other players.
“We need to say well done to Lautaro for the penalty, well done to Perisic for the runs, well done to everyone for all you did. Bravo, Bravo to everyone in that dressing room.
“I also say Bravo to the fans, because they let the team know that they were behind us even in moments of difficulty. Thank you all.
“Lautaro is powerful, has technique, confidence. You just need to look him in the eyes and you can tell he can take on everything. We’ve found a young striker who can sort a lot of things out for us…
“I’d be mad to remove Brozovic, as he’s doing really well at the moment. Vecino is better at pushing forward and making runs in the box, especially on a corner, and stamina is not an issue for him, so he tracked back to press the midfielders too.”
Yet it took a Danilo D’Ambrosio last-gasp block on Patrick Cutrone to ensure Inter emerged with the three points.
“I thought Milan put in a very strong performance and Gennaro Gattuso ought to be proud of his players. When it’s this open and exciting, anyone can win or lose. The city of Milan earned this Derby della Madonnina and were rewarded with a wonderful night of football. We both honoured the Derby.”