After three consecutive goalless draws in their opening three Europa League ties Saint-Etienne coach Christophe Galtier has defended his approach during the stalemate with Inter on Thursday night, insisting they went to the San Siro looking for three points.
In a dour contest neither side looked particularly interested in securing a victory that would aid their progression to the knock-out stages, however, the Frenchman put their inability to score down to a lack of precision in front of goal.
“I did not want to reveal what I was going to do tonight and that is why yesterday I tried to deflect journalists in the [press] conference,” Galtier told the press.
“We did not come here for a draw, we are ambitious, we wanted to win and we have to win games if we are to go through.
“I thought this formation would have created problems for our opponents. We defended very well even if the goalkeeper has made ??some saves, but we had control of the game when Inter began to relax in the second half.
“Unfortunately we have not taken advantage of our best moments of the match because our shots have not gone well or lack of precision, but as a team we played well, we knew it would be difficult to contain the Inter attack but were not incisive enough.
“Inter played with the same system that it has used since the beginning of the season, although the classic role of [Mateo] Kovacic was slightly different from the normal and perhaps this was related to our formation.
“We want to beat Inter in the return, it will be difficult but if we go through we have to win at least two games and make home advantage count.
“We lost two points against Dnipro at home, and even though this is not a negative result, there are two ways of looking at things, optimistic or pessimistic, the optimistic side is that we have not conceded a goal.
“I’m not surprised by the victory of Qarabag against Dnipro, it is a good team that played well at San Siro.”
Follow Kevin Pogorzelski on Twitter: @rabbitrabbiton
