Andrea Stramaccioni admits Inter “miss Maicon,” but can end their San Siro taboo against Siena on Sunday.
Andrea Stramaccioni admits Inter “miss Maicon,” but can end their San Siro taboo against Siena on Sunday.
The Nerazzurri have won all their away games so far this season in Serie A and the Europa League, but are yet to register a single victory on home turf.
“We must build on the character that this team has, which in my view belongs to a top club,” said Stramaccioni in his Press conference.
“Since I’ve been in charge of Inter, the only time we didn’t overturn a result was against Roma. On Thursday we had an important response, as we were losing against the run of play,” he said of the last-gasp 2-2 draw with Rubin Kazan.
“If that game had continued for another five minutes, we’d probably have won. The taboo is more in the numbers than the actual performances. We will turn this around on the pitch too.
“Now that I have all five centre-backs at my disposal, we can start using different options. Cristian Chivu is very important and now he’s back he’ll allow us to do things we haven’t been able to so far.”
Inter were accused of playing ‘like a provincial side’ in their 2-0 victory at Torino last week, something that angered Coach Stramaccioni.
“We were missing a Maicon-style figure on the right. We have changed nine players and it seems normal to me that it’ll take a while to settle,” he added, referring to the full-back sold to Manchester City this summer.
“Wesley Sneijder reacted badly to his substitution, but that just shows he is a leader who wants to win at all costs. I am not worried by that sort of reaction.
“Siena represent a tough opponent, as they play very well in defence. Having said that, we’re determined to win in front of our fans both for the reasons I explained earlier and so we can stick with the leading pack.
“We saw what happened to Roma when they were 2-0 up against Bologna and lost 3-2. Serie A is very difficult and we must maintain our concentration for the entire 90 minutes.”
Inter squad for Siena: Handanovic, Castellazzi, Belec; Zanetti, Silvestre, Ranocchia, Samuel, Chivu, Juan Jesus, Jonathan, Bianchetti, Nagatomo; Sneijder, Alvarez, Guarin, Cambiasso, Gargano, Pereira, Duncan; Coutinho, Milito, Livaja, Cassano