Chivu owns Inter's collapse but won't scrap the press that exposed them
After a 4-3 collapse against Club Brugge, Cristian Chivu accepts blame for Inter's defensive fragility while defending the high-press approach and confirming Lautaro Martinez's return date.
Cristian Chivu has taken personal responsibility for Inter's 4-3 Champions League defeat to Club Brugge, telling reporters "it has to begin with me" when asked how his side can shore up a defence that has leaked goals all season, Football Italia reported.
Club Brugge's 22-year-old forward Nicolò Tresoldi scored a hat-trick at San Siro, converting a penalty after Hakan Calhanoglu fouled Carlos Forbs, then punishing a mistake from goalkeeper Josep Martínez before outpacing Inter's defence for a third with 15 minutes left, according to AFP and Reuters via the Guardian.
The pattern of that collapse matters more than the scoreline. Inter led 2-1 and had produced two clear chances early in the second half, by Chivu's own account, meaning the capitulation was concentrated in a narrow window rather than spread across the match.
That framing, which Chivu described as "two matches within one", points to a specific failure: a team that controls territory and chances for an hour but has no mechanism to protect a lead once fatigue or a single error disrupts its structure. A high press that works for 60 minutes but collapses in the final third of a game is not a system failure so much as a conditioning and composure problem, and Chivu's refusal to retreat into a deeper block suggests he reads it the same way.
Conceding eight goals in six Serie A matches and six more across two Champions League games is a defensive record that cannot be explained by one bad night. The common thread, visible again against Brugge, is that Inter's goals against tend to arrive from individual breakdowns — a mistimed challenge, a goalkeeping error, a lost footrace — rather than from being passed off the pitch, which usually signals a team whose aggressive setup leaves individuals exposed when the press is beaten.
Why Chivu won't abandon the press
Chivu was explicit that scrapping the pressing approach after one bad half-hour would be the easy option, not the correct one. Keeping it means accepting that Inter's defensive line will keep being tested in behind, and that recovery depends on collective discipline holding under pressure rather than on dropping deeper for safety.
He was equally direct that the response has to be shared rather than imposed from the bench, saying the group needed to find unity and stop reacting emotionally once games turn, a reference to how Brugge's second goal visibly unsettled Inter's shape.
Palladino's Brugge posed the right questions
Chivu credited Raffaele Palladino, a month into the job at Brugge, with building on the vertical, high-intensity identity the Belgian side already had under his predecessor Italiano. Tresoldi's directness in behind Inter's line was the clearest expression of that approach, and it is precisely the kind of pace-in-transition threat that punishes a back line committed to pressing high.
The Lautaro gap widens the problem
Lautaro Martinez scored twice against Brugge before picking up an injury that will keep him out for roughly a month, ruling him out of the Milan derby as well. Chivu said he had been told that timeline but was not in a position to confirm it medically, adding only that Inter are planning for his return after the November international break.
Losing a striker who had just scored a brace, on top of a defence already shipping goals in bursts, raises the stakes on every other attacking option. Chivu pointed to Ange-Yoan Bonny, who he said had impressed him early in the season, as a player likely to get more minutes in Lautaro's absence.
Chivu's message to the squad was that nothing changes in approach with or without their captain, framing it as a test of "leadership" across the group rather than a tactical adjustment. That is a heavier ask given the fixture list: Inter travel to Bologna in Serie A just four days after the Brugge defeat, against a side Chivu himself described as well organised and full of energy under Palladino's successor setup.