The inability to finish off an opponent that played almost an hour with 10 men was enough to leave the manager frustrated despite a win
Antonio Conte has called on Inter to be more clinical after they only managed a 1-0 victory over 10-man Udinese on Saturday.
Inter moved to the top of Serie A, two points clear of Juventus, as their third win in as many matches was secured by Stefano Sensi’s first-half header.
Sensi’s goal followed Rodrigo De Paul being shown a red card, after referee Maurizio Mariani reviewed footage of him striking Antonio Candreva on the head away from the ball.
Romelu Lukaku failed to have a single shot at goal, while Alexis Sanchez was brought on for his debut with just 10 minutes remaining as the Nerazzurri scraped through.
“I congratulated the lads because it was a very difficult match against a strong team and these three points are important. We deserved them but must also recognise Udinese did well to stay in the game until the end,” Conte told DAZN.
“We should’ve been more clinical and finished it off earlier, but instead we were always just hanging on.
“We know we have to fight. I read too much rubbish in the papers. We must go our own way without thinking about anything or anyone else. The truth is nothing is easy and we will never take anything for granted.
“I had warned the players that Udinese would take a very defensive approach and we had to be careful on counter-attacks. We’ve got to start moves from the back and we achieved that against a team that will cause problems for many opponents this season.
“We’ve got a long road ahead of us, we have a lot of work to do and won’t get caught up in the euphoria, we are laying the groundwork. We want to be a tough team.”
This is just the fifth time Inter have won their first three matches of a Serie A campaign since the start of the three points per win era and was also the club’s fourth league win on the bounce. They had only won four time in their previous 10 league outings ahead of this run.
It was also the fourth time in four matches that they have held a clean sheet against Udinese, a defensive record the club had not seen since the 1960s against this particular opponent.
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