RISCONE DI BRUNICO – After a week and a half of intensive training in the mountains, Inter beat Carpi 4-2 in their second pre-season friendly this afternoon and Roberto Mancini admitted that he is pleased with how the team's pre-season preparations are coming along.
"I'm happy with what we've done in these last 11 days," he said. We've been able to work on a bit of everything. Some things we've done well and others less well, but that's normal."
The coach was asked to comment on Federico Dimarco's performance after the Nerazzurri academy product played the first half at left-back. "Dimarco is a youngster with good ability but he needs to improve his game. He's left-footed and that's the best position for him. We'll pick whoever happens to be in the best shape."
Questions about the transfer market followed next: Will Inter sign a new striker? "Negotiations can prove to be hard going sometimes. When a good team sells a good player they need to sign another one in his place."
Probed specifically about Perisic, Mancini replied: "I don't know if he'll join us. We've managed to get some decent work under our belts on this training camp but we have another 30 days of work to go and now we're off to China. Do we need quality players? The club are working on it."
The Nerazzurri boss then spared a few words for midfield duo Geoffrey Kondogbia and Mateo Kovacic.
"Kondogbia is a very good player with huge margin for improvement. He struggled a bit because he's changed training methods. All the players have been training well but we can only have 25 on our squad list."
Kovacic meanwhile started the game in the holding role in front of the defence. "It was his first game but he came through it pretty well. It's up to him whether he plays there in future. Whoever plays in that position must lose the ball very rarely and needs to be able to win back possession too."
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