MILAN – The Nerazzurri midfielder gave us his take on tonight’s disappointing defeat to Udinese: “We did well in the first half, but then I don’t know what happened after that. It was a tough match, though if we’d taken our chances in the first half then we would’ve won,” he began.

“A coach can’t change everything in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, we’re in one of those periods and we just need to look forward. We’ve got a good team but we’re making too many errors. We must listen to the coach and work harder,” affirmed Kovacic.

Asked about his best position, the Croatian midfielder replied: “I’m comfortable playing on the inside left of midfield, or even further forward. But I need to improve. The most important thing is to do well wherever the boss asks me to play.

“Is there too much responsibility on me? No, I just concentrate on my game. I want to help the team. We’re not having a good spell at the moment, but let’s give Mancini time. Serie A is a very tough league, and every match is hard. We need to try and do better, one good half is just not enough,” concluded Kovacic. 

MILAN – After a Jekyll and Hyde performance from Inter, coach Roberto Mancini gave his take on the match against Udinese tonight: “We played excellently in the first half, pushing forward with aggression. We should’ve scored more than we did, because we created a lot of chances. In the second half, there was a fifteen-minute period where we gave Udinese far too much room.

“Conceding goals is part of football, but games last 90 minutes. We scored first tonight and then let in an equaliser. At that point, we should’ve gone back to playing as we had done in the first half, but we couldn’t manage it. I don’t think it’s a question of fatigue, we just need to understand that there are various phases during football matches. Maybe the goals hit our morale – that can’t happen. We opened up too much and the defence dropped too deep. One goal shouldn’t change our attitude.

“I’m delighted with the first half, but I’m very angry about the defeat. You’re always going to sustain some blows over the 90 minutes of a football match, but a real team shouldn’t collapse.  Even in Rome, it shouldn’t have turned out how it did.

“The only thing we can do is roll up our sleeves and get to work. Sooner or later, things will change. I believe in what we’re doing because we played well in the first half and we’ve only been together for a couple of weeks. But ultimately we need to show more quality, because we let Udinese back into the game,” concluded Mancini.

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