LECCE - "We went up against a keeper in great form, who grew throughout
the match while we became agitated. They scored in our strongest moment, then
Benassi, the post, the two goals by us rightly disallowed... But I can't
say anything bad about my lads because they gave it their all, and when these
kinds of things happen we need to remain calm. We knew what awaited us but
unfortunately we couldn't take control. This isn't what we wanted but that's
football," said Claudio Ranieri at the end of the game.
The Inter coach was then asked about the substitution of Sneijder:
"Sneijder coming off? He wasn't playing badly but I wanted to restore
security. We're still not managing to develop the 4-3-1-2 well; in a 4-4-2 we
can express ourselves better. Can he play alone behind the strikers? We've said
it many times; he's a central player who must be free to vary things. He's a
playmaker, and I can't restrict him to the flanks. He can play in a 4-4-1-1 but
we must try to assimilate the diamond. Today we tried, but I saw that the team
still wasn't able to find itself. They didn't manage to press. They were too
stretched and I changed things. It's hard to reintegrate players in the team
because either I go with Sneijder and a forward or I go with the diamond
midfield, which we are still not interpreting in the best way at this moment.
In the future perhaps we'll try with a 4-2-3-1, with Forlan out wide and
Sneijder behind a forward. But we have to try it because in the first half
today we didn't have the necessary compactness."
A verbal exchange between
Pazzini and Sneijder was then pointed out to Ranieri: "When you want to
win, it's OK if the players exchange a few words... [smiling]."
Finally, a comment on the transfer market: "I've asked for Motta to stay and he's staying. I'm convinced that Motta will stay. The club have assured me that he'll stay until at least June. This is good because we don't have a midfielder with his qualities."
