Zlatan Ibrahimovic has spoken about the exit of Alvaro Morata and the signing of Santiago Gimenez, while stressing the importance of mentality in the derby.
Milan take on their city rivals at San Siro tonight in the third derby of the season, after winning the reverse game 2-1 back in September and the Supercoppa Italiana final in early January.
However, the Rossoneri come into it with a lot of uncertainty. A defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in midweek in the Champions League resulted in dropping into the play-off zone, and since then there has been a flurry of transfer activity.
Inter meanwhile are in excellent form coming into the game and are hoping for revenge after the previous two defeats to Milan, while they are also right in the title race again.
Ibrahimovic spoke to Sky during the build-up to the game to give his thoughts ahead of the fixture and also provide a mercato update, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
How do you experience this derby? What kind of derby is it?
“A derby is a derby. A derby is won and faced with a great mentality, it is more than a match. Two great clubs, two great teams. Everyone wants to win, we have prepared well, we are charged and we want to win.”
What went wrong with Morata? What do you expect from Gimenez?
“First of all Alvaro is a great person and a great player, I wish him the best. Some stories for various reasons don’t ‘click’. I won’t say more than that.
“We followed Gimenez for many months, we also tried in the summer but it was a different situation. He’s ready, I saw him live and he’s fired up, he’s really eager to start. We’re all fired up.”
How to help the team to be consistent?
“You have to keep up the winning rhythm. If you don’t keep winning there’s always something holding you back. We have to support from above, put everyone in the best possible condition: they have to be focused on the field and play.
“There are high moments and low moments, but the important thing is to continue and this desire to improve and bring results.”
I loved you on the field but presently, you should just shut up!
“How to help the team to be consistent?”
Maybe not forcing your first team players out of the club against their own will?
Well said, Teddy boy..👍 His skills on the pitch do not resemble his ability as an advisor.
I disagree. Needed to shape things up and if that sends a signal to fir this team up then I’m all for it. When things aren’t going well I want to see a reaction instead of keeping silent.
I’m all for cleaning up this house of deadwood but it’s only January and the way he did it? “Ibra tone”? We don’t need any more negative interruptions in the middle of the season, that’s my take on the situation. But in summer, it’s a different story.
Oh pleaze. Everybody trashed them and on the first bad match…the strawman here are like sell him…
LoL.
New coach new direction, and its a business. He left it out ti the players. Tomori reflected but with 2 consecutive games on 1st team, hes not out like morada and calabria.. clearly 2nd or 3rd choices…
Tomori makes the defense better… we dont have a star, but its highly competitive for thiaw, tomori, gabbia and pavlo….
Bulls***
As a player you’re fantastic but not as an advisor.
#redbirdout# with all director and advisor
If Zlatan thinks we prepared well for this game, how would the performance be if we didn’t prepare, I wonder.
The team was a punching bag receiving punches from Inter most of the time. I don’t see any tactics nor the team had teeth to attack or hold the ball.
Many things need to change
And he didn’t even mentioned Calabria, or did he?
he wasn’t asked…was he?