Stellini: "We dominated for 75 minutes but need to see out certain games better"

REGGIO EMILIA – It was an exciting lunchtime match full of goals between Sassuolo and Inter at the Mapei Stadium: the Nerazzurri dominated the game up until the final 15 minutes before having to hold off a Sassuolo fightback. In the end, Antonio Conte’s men ran out 4-3 winners and secured their seventh Serie A win in eight games.

Following the match, Inter’s assistant coach Cristian Stellini spoke to the press and immediately explained the Coach’s post-match absence: “Antonio is slightly worn out, he had a bit of a fever before the match. He gave his all so he could lead the team, as he always does over the course of the 90 minutes. Thankfully, he wasn’t kept away from the bench today but he’s feeling the effects again now.”

Stellini then analysed the match: “Returning to the pitch and rediscovering your tempo after the international break is never easy, especially when players come back late. This happens to many teams, not just us. The difficulties we had came after 70-75 minutes, we suffered a blackout which will be analysed in detail. We’ve resumed our journey but still need to put in a lot of hard work because we need to see certain games out better.”

As regards the closing stages of the match, the assistant coach had the following to say: “Sassuolo increased the tempo, we had less energy and, as opposed to what we had managed to do very well previously, weren’t able to get the ball into the opposition’s half of the pitch. We lost the ball twice and they caught us by surprise when breaking quickly. It was too easy for them to score. We’ve still got a long way to go and working on situations like this is the most important thing for us.”