(IN THE PHOTO: Massimiliano Allegri during the press conference)
MILANELLO – Here’s what the Rossoneri coach had to say to the gathered journalists ahead of Inter-Milan tomorrow evening at the San Siro:
"The President’s presence is always important. It was last season and this one as well. Important words were spoken by both Galliani and Barbara Berlusconi at club headquarters the other night. The President made the best choice for the club but there was no doubt about that. We’ve lost three derbies so tomorrow could be good night for us. Both team will want to win ahead of the Christmas break. We’ll have to play perfectly both tactically and technically. Inter are doing well and they’ve scored more goals than any other team. They have players like Palacio, Guarin and Kovacic. They’re well organized, experienced and very strong. We’ll have to prepare well, even more than usual as it’s a derby. It’ll be a great night and it’ll be even better if we can bring home a result. We’re behind in the league and we need the points to have a happy Christmas. After that we have the second half of the season to get back on track and I believe this team can do it.”“I’ll decide the line-up tomorrow. Kakà is doing very well and taking a lot of responsibility both on and off the pitch which is important for us. We’re still missing a few players that would give us options. Mazzarri is doing great work with Inter. They lost against Napoli playing good football and he’s underlining what a great coach he is. He’s making the future foundations of the club.”“It makes no sense to talk about my future at the moment. We should talk about the derby which will be a great match. The team shouldn’t be distracted by rumors as we have our job to do, in the league, in the cup and in the Champions League. We all have our objectives in our heads and the team has to be like a single entity to get back in the league and prepare for the next round of the Champions League.” “We’ll get another few players back after the Christmas break and then we’ll have a full squad. If we play like we did against Roma, it’ll be tough to get a result as we made a ,lot of technical mistakes. You need balance in football and when you make judgments, you can’t say that a player or a team is good this week and bad the next. If a player’s good, he’s good but there are other factors. His role on the pitch, the atmosphere etc. Both team have big ambitions and the chance to end the season in the top six. Napoli and Fiorentina have invested heavily. We’ve slipped up am lot against smaller teams but anything can happen in the head to head matches. Roma and Juventus are the top two teams and against them, we had goal scoring chances and other situations where we should have done better. The team played good football on Monday, a small step forward. Tomorrow’s match will be different as it’s a derby which is always a special game in terms of tension. This is a team that’s going through a good period. We can get a lot of satisfaction in the next five months.”“Balotelli is calm and he’s doing well. He knows it’s an important game and I’m sure he’ll do well. Emanuelson is available but I’ll have to evaluate his condition. Kakà will captain the side in the absence of Montolivo. Pazzini is getting better. He’s still a bit behind the others but he’ll be an important player for the rest of the season. Cristante has come on well in the last month. He’s not ready to play in front of the defense but he’s grown a lot. Saponara has talent and I’m happy with how he’s training and he has good personality. As far as Gabriel goes, when he played his first game there was a lot of enthusiasm, then he made some mistakes on Monday but he has talent and he’ll grow. Unfortunately for a young keeper, it’s all the more obvious if you slip up. He has a good chance of becoming an important keeper but he should stay calm. He should find strength from the criticism.”“The club deals with market matters and Rami and Honda are good acquisitions. But we shouldn’t forget that De Sciglio has been out for almost the whole season as has El Shaarawy. After January things will be different. Niang is still a teenager and he did well last season. You have to be patient. Unless of course the player is a real phenomenon like De Scilgio, but there aren’t many like him. Nainggolan is a good player but as long as he’s playing for another team, I’d rather not speak about him. We have a big squad at the moment. Ideally we’d be 24/25 players including keepers.”