Chiellini: ‘Inter totally out-played Juve’

Giorgio Chiellini discusses his physical battle with Romelu Lukaku, admitting Juventus were ‘out-played in every area of the field’ by Inter in this 2-0 defeat.

The result was never really in doubt at San Siro, as Nicolò Barella created one goal for Arturo Vidal and scored the second himself on a long Alessandro Bastoni ball.

“You can make all the preparations and tests you want, but it’s about putting that into action. We didn’t win a single duel on the field today, Inter wanted it more and deserved the victory,” Chiellini told Sky Sport Italia.

“It’s a blow, but it mustn’t be a knockout blow, because we have the time to make up for it and a long way to go this season, starting on Wednesday against Napoli in the Supercoppa. Fortunately, we are playing again in three days, so we can put this behind us and focus on winning the first trophy of the campaign.”

Napoli beat Fiorentina 6-0 this afternoon and play at a high pace, so they’re going to potentially stretch Juve as well.

“There are times when you have to be humble and allow the opponents to have the ball, but our problem today was that when we were on the ball, we made a lot of mistakes and were constantly giving it away or not finding a way through.

“We were out-played in every area of the field, we kept taking too many touches, were moving the ball too slowly, we made too many mistakes.”

Juve fired Maurizio Sarri last season because his style of football never found a ‘spark’ within the players, so have they done any better under Andrea Pirlo?

“We had a few sparks this season, for instance in Barcelona. We had four wins in very tough games, but it becomes difficult to analyse a performance like this evening when there was such a big gap between the teams. It’s tough to talk about tactics and systems when you are so inferior on the night.

“The years go by, we are trying in every way to keep this era going and a 10th consecutive Scudetto would be truly incredible. It’s not easy, we are trying our best, but we had two blackouts and paid for them with heavy defeats to Fiorentina and Inter.”

Chiellini had quite a battle with Romelu Lukaku, although it was also a clean and fair one, with both men fighting it out.

“Lukaku is such an incredibly physical striker, you have to use your whole body to close him down. We managed to limit him, but not neutralise him completely. All games end with a few bruises and this is no different.”

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