Walter Mazzarri spoke to the press after winning his first derby with Inter.
The coach began: “Yes, I celebrated when we scored but then I almost regretted it because there was still a bit left to play – I think I must have had a flashback to Inter v Juve… [smiling]. You can never let your guard down in this game. We’ve thrown away too many points by letting our concentration slip after taking the lead and it would have been a shame to do that again today.
“The penalty on Palacio? We may as well forget about penalties completely… Everyone saw it today – it was as clear as you like. We’re still not getting any luck there.
“We did miss Alvarez. In the first half we were too tense, and they were chasing us down well too. Then in the second half we played as we know how to. We shook ourselves up in the dressing room during the break and in the end we played a great game. It looked like it was going to be another of those days when the ball just doesn’t want to go in. We couldn’t quite finish off our moves.”
Asked about the transfer market, Mazzarri stressed: “I won’t talk about reinforcements, I only talk to the club about things like that and they know what I think. We have dropped a few points because of our mistakes and our ingenuity but if we think about where we started we can only be satisfied.”
On Mateo Kovacic: “Today I told him that if he wants to play in central midfield or in the hole that’s fine but in any case he needs to put in the defensive work as well. He showed great maturity today. He occasionally tried to take on a man too many but he really did play very well. He did what I asked him to do. If he could play like he did today all the time, he could do some great things for this team.”
Finally, there was a question about Fredy Guarin: “Have we already sold Guarin? Who to? That’s something you need to ask the club. Besides, the transfer window isn’t even open yet. We’ll take stock of things after this game. Could Lavezzi join if Guarin leaves? I don’t like playing along with these games. Guarin is improving a lot and he’s had a great season so far.”
Source: inter.it
