Luciano Spalletti Gives Update on Marcelo Brozovic's Injury Status After Inter's Draw With Atalanta

Inter manager Luciano Spalletti was content with his team's performance despite seeing his side draw at home to Atalanta on Sunday evening. 

The Nerazzurri created a number of good chances but were unable to get the ball in the back of the net, partly due to the outstanding efforts of Atalanta goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini. Mauro Icardi, playing in his first home match since his return to the Inter side, had a few opportunities to score but failed to make the breakthrough against a determined Atalanta side.

Inter captain Samir Handanovic had to be alert to repel the league's joint top scorers and both managers will feel that a draw was a fair result as both teams fought for the win, neither content to sit back and defend.

Worryingly for Spalletti, he saw Marcelo Brozovic limp off in the first half, and speaking to the Sky Sports after the game [via SempreInter], he offered an update on the Croatian midfielder: "He has a muscle injury and will certainly not play the next game."

The Italian is already without a number of first team players and will hope that Brozovic's absence is only going to make him miss the one game, as the midfielder is an important player for the Nerazzurri.

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The Inter manager was also questioned about the performance of Icardi and had this to say about the Argentine striker: "Today was Inter’s day, not Icardi’s. Like in all the other matches, past and future. Icardi must do well, he must drop deep to get the ball which he done a lot more than today but he must run for the team like all complete strikers do.”

The result, and Napoli's draw to Empoli, mean the Nerazzurri are now seven points behind the Partenopei and in an interview with Inter TV [via SempreInter] Spalletti highlighted the unpredictability of Serie A this season: "It is unpredictable. Now the time has come where teams are fighting to save themselves so when you go to face those teams it becomes hard. There is still a lot of the league season to be played.

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 This performance from the team bodes well for me. They placed with ferocity and the fans enjoyed watching it. We often lost the ball when we tried to force play instead of trying to keep things together. At times we played too fast and took too few touches but if you take the time to have more touches, things can be solved.”