Zaniolo compared with Lampard and Gerrard

13 feb 2019

Inter Primavera coach, Stefano Vecchi, has been interviewed by Sky Sport to talk about the Nerazzurri and their former youngster Nicolò Zaniolo, whom he trained in the Primavera. Vecchi said that from their time together, he could spot the youngsters technical and physical superiority. ‘He showed it last year with us and with the national team. He has great physicality and is demonstrating it, then technically he is a player who has never discussed. The difficulty in training him last season was to keep him always on focus because sometimes he was content with something less given his strength and his qualities. ‘Why did Inter not kept him? He had trained with the first team, was appreciated by the staff and by Spalletti. Inter needed immediately ready players and being able to take Nainggolan was the key.’

‘When at Venezia I had a couple of phone calls made to understand if you could bring him to Venice and immediately they said no’. The Italian coach then went on to discuss the player's position and the situation with Mauro Icardi, ‘the role? For me it can become a left wing of international level. I compared him to Lampard or Gerrard. But he also knows how to play the trequartista, he knows how to do the right-hand side like he did yesterday. He is a complete player ".

‘I do not know what happened, but for something like this, something important must have happened: for what I've learned of Icardi in those 5 games I've had in the first team he wanted us to score more, but he always loved the team and the group, I do not know what happened, but if I have to make a judgment, Icardi has always been popular ".

@lmiller2411