Inter Milan Coach Declares ‘We Have To Play Our Game’ Vs Man City, Explains Dropping Captain & Ex Arsenal Veteran | OneFootball

Inter Milan coach Simone Inzaghi feels that his team must “play their game” in this evening’s Champions League clash with Man City.

The Nerazzurri coach spoke to Amazon Prime, via FCInterNews, ahead of his team’s “league phase” opener.

Inter officially begin their European adventure for the season today.

The Nerazzurri do so in the toughest of circumstances. They play away to Premier League juggernauts Manchester City.

Thus far this season, City have won four league matches from four.

The Cityzens have won the Premier League title in each of the last four seasons.

And City are also the team who beat Inter in the Champions League final in June of 2023.

Therefore, the Nerazzurri will be well aware of how tough this match will be. Particularly away from home.

But scratching a little deeper beneath the surface, there are reasons for Inter to be hopeful.

Above all, there is Inter’s performance in the final against City in 2023.

The Nerazzurri may have lost that match. But it was by a 0-1 scoreline, and they went toe-to-toe with the English giants.

Inter even had good chances to equalize late on in that match, although they squandered them.

Inter Coach Inzaghi: “We Need To Play Our Game” Vs Man City

A big part of the reason why Inter were able to push City in 2023 was that they did not compromise their style of play.

The Nerazzurri did not just sit back and look to deny the Cityzens space.

On the contrary, Inter utilized the versatility of Inzaghi’s 3-5-2 shape to cover the pitch and disrupt City in all phases of play.

And as for this evening’s match, Inzaghi said that “I asked the team to play our game.”

“We know how strong our opponent is,” the Inter coach continued.

“But we know what we have to do. We prepared for it as well as we could have.”

“We need to show personality in how we manage the ball,” Inzaghi said. “When we don’t have it it will be tough to win it back, but when we do we have to do well with it.”

Meanwhile, Inzaghi also explained why captain Lautaro Martinez and midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan dropped to the bench this evening despite regularly starting.

“I had to make some decisions,” the Inter coach said.

“Lautaro hasn’t trained much,” Inzaghi said. “And he’s travelled a lot.”

“Taremi came back in similar condition to Lautaro. But he hasn’t played as much, and he can help us.”

Then the Inter coach noted that “I liked what I saw from Zielinski when he came on against Monza,” explaining why the Pole takes the place of Mkhitaryan in the lineup.

“I need everyone in the squad to win matches when they’re so close together.”