Dembele: 'We had to finish the game'

Mousa Dembele saw Tuesday’s slip-up in the San Siro as an opportunity missed.

The Belgian international midfielder put in another committed display, helping to drive us forward as we locked horns with Inter in our first outing of a fresh Champions League campaign.

Ultimately, our efforts went unrewarded as a late turnaround saw goals from Mauro Icardi and Matias Vecino cancel out Christian Eriksen’s opener to give the Italian outfit a 2-1 victory in Group B.

“I think we played well, we were very disciplined but I think we had to finish the game when we could and after it’s so disappointing when we gave them the three points,” said Mousa, who was in the side when we last met Inter in the San Siro in a Europa League tie back in 2013.

“We saw that there are possibilities here and then it’s disappointing when you lose here. When it was 1-1 I think we still could have done the job. Obviously it’s a missed opportunity. There were a lot of opportunities here but okay, it’s finished now, we have to keep our heads up because there were a lot of positives as well and we need to continue.

“We can’t let it stay like this, we need to turn this around so for us, I understand that everybody is disappointed but we need to turn it around because there’s not too much time between games.”

Mousa earned praise from some quarters for his own battling display, but he wasn’t interested in any personal plaudits after the game.

“It’s difficult to talk about this because now I’m just disappointed,” he said. “Everybody was on top of the game, we were chasing, playing our game and the only thing I can think about is how quickly that this game went this way.

“Obviously we’re going to talk about it, we’re going to see what we did wrong and we’re going to go to the next game because there’s no time to think too much.”