VERONA – Frank de Boer stressed the need to get better in all areas of the team after this evening's opening-day loss to Chievo Verona at the Stadio Bentegodi.
"You can't deny that it was a tough outing today but we're just at the beginning and we can improve both in terms of our play and fitness-wise," declared the recently appointed Nerazzurri coach. "Not just Candreva, all the players need to be managed throughout the 90 minutes.
"We played with three and sometimes five at the back, taking into account our fitness and the opposition's formation.
"It's true that we created a number of chances before we conceded, so perhaps our concentration dropped, which may also be connected to our physical condition. This is why I decided to go with three at the back. We've only had one friendly and I've not had time to improve on these aspects.
"I've had three lessons of Italian so far, I'm studying the language and hope to be able to speak it soon.
"We're disappointed with this game. You always want three points and nobody was expecting this type of performance. We have a week ahead to improve on our fitness levels and how we play without the ball, another area where we struggled. I had to choose this formation because Chievo play with a diamond in midfield, so I thought three at the back would free up a man.
"Candreva is familiar with this system from the Italy team and I have to make choices. Neither Banega nor Candreva have got 90 minutes under their belts, not even in a friendly.
"Our physical condition is a tricky question at the moment. We have to improve on it and the only way is by playing games and unfortunately we can only do that in matches where there are three points at stake every time. I can't blame the previous coach for this, we just have to address the situation immediately."
Finally, the Dutchman fielded few questions on his side's line-up: "We've got loads of full-backs. It's up to me to make the decisions and Erkin was left out. Perisic has played a lot for his national team, like the others I rotated. I made these decisions based on the players' fitness, which I thought was in the team's best interests. Maybe he will play next week, not everybody has 90 minutes in them yet."
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