Inzaghi shrugs off Allegri's 'favourites' tag
Inter Milan labelled as favourite to win the Serie A title by Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri, and Simone Inzaghi took the compliment in his stride.
The Nerazzurri host Juventus in the Derby d'Italia on Monday (AEDT), with three points separating the sides in the Serie A standings.
Inter is behind AC Milan and a Napoli side which has made a flying start to the campaign, winning all eight of its matches played so far.
However, Allegri insisted in his pre-match news conference that Inter was still the favourite, despite having lost coach Antonio Conte, star striker Romelu Lukaku and full-back Achraf Hakimi during the close season.
Inzaghi responded by accepting Allegri's flattery, although the Inter boss does not agree with his Juventus counterpart.
"The championship is at the beginning," Inzaghi said. "It's a very important match between two very competitive teams.
"If [Allegri] says so, a coach I respect so much, it's nice. I could say the same about them, Napoli, Milan and more.
"We want to be favourites and we will try to do our best."
Juve comes into Monday's (AEDT) fixture on the back of a four-match winning run in Serie A, while Inter lost 3-1 at Lazio last time out in the league.
The Turin giant is also expected to be able to welcome back forward Paulo Dybala, who has been out for almost a month because of injury.
"Of course, Juventus is our historical rival," Inzaghi said. "We will have to do well to make the match ours. They have recovered all their players, they have excellent results and we must give them great attention.
"We have always held our ground and lost only two games despite playing well, even deserving a different result.
"The progress is good, we have slowed down for a moment, but we are aware and play excellent football."
