Conte: 'Press should be ashamed'
By Football Italia staff
Antonio Conte revealed Inter are taking legal action against the Corriere dello Sport, while the press association “ought to be ashamed.”
The situation erupted on Saturday when Conte suddenly cancelled the planned press conference
in protest at the letters page of the Corriere dello Sport.
It published an email from a Bologna fan noting he was “relishing” Inter’s Champions League elimination, calling Conte “clapped out” and other insulting terms.
The issue Inter seem most aggrieved with is the fact the Corriere editor did not contest the email in its response, if anything adding to the disrespectful tone.
“It is all being handled by the lawyers,” Conte told Sky Sport Italia this evening.
“It was not my choice, it was Inter who took it personally. If you want to set an example, we need to do it broadly and send a signal to everyone, not just individuals.”
However, the Italian press union joined in with a statement demanding Conte apologise for locking everyone out of the planned conference rather than just the Corriere dello Sport.
“There has to be respect, it was genuinely surprising and absurd to see the press association demand my apology. They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” continued the coach.
“The papers are going too far. One day they publish
a front page on racism that makes us a laughing stock all over the world. Another day they publish a letter a day before Sinisa Mihajlovic announces he was ill, even when he asked them not to.
“We have to put some brakes on here. Just because someone has a pen, they don’t get to just write whatever they want.
“Inter want to look into this so-called email, because it might be a fake and they want to know what is at the bottom of it.”
Conte: 'Inter deserved more again'
By Football Italia staff
Antonio Conte saw some parallels between
Inter’s 1-1 draw with Fiorentina and the 2-1 defeat to Barcelona. “We deserved more from both games.”
The Nerazzurri have had a rough few days, as they crashed out of the Champions League with a 2-1 home defeat to Barcelona, then fumbled a lead to draw 1-1 in stoppages at Fiorentina.
“These are games where we didn’t take the results we deserved. Against Barcelona, we paid for wasting several chances to score and allowing two situations where we could’ve done a lot better,” Conte told Sky Sport Italia.
“It was a strong response from the team. It’s disappointing about that late equaliser, because we deserved more, both tonight and against Barcelona.
“We must try to improve our finishing and our defending.”
The draw means Juventus have now caught Inter at the top of the Serie A table, both on 39 points.
“I don’t think we can complain about the effort or attitude of these lads. It is a growth process, we need patience to learn from mistakes. If we don’t have patience and assume we must win every game because we are Inter, then we’re not progressing.
“We had the chances to win it, (Bartlomiej) Dragowski made an extraordinary save on Romelu Lukaku. We are talking about players who are constantly going out there and playing 90 minutes, so inevitably there is going to be some fatigue.
“Perhaps the fact that we came here and dominated Fiorentina is a positive, so we should see the glass half-full.”
Milan Skriniar tried to chase down Dusan Vlahovic for the equaliser, but Conte again pointed to inevitable fatigue.
“It’s hard to talk about fitness levels, because we’ve had seven games in 21 days, with Lautaro and Lukaku playing constantly.
“Unfortunately, the Alexis Sanchez injury left us in a situation where we couldn’t give them any respite, so I can only thank them. These players need a breather, but we cannot afford to give it to them.
“It’s disappointing to concede a counter-attack goal in stoppages. We can only work harder to be more precise and try to prevent these situations from developing.”