Rafael Benitez wary of Tottenham Hotspur counter-attack
Inter Milan manager Rafael Benitez has revealed that he will be mindful of the counter-attacking threat posed by Tottenham Hotspur when the sides meet in the UEFA Champions League.
Benitez, who moved to Inter in the summer, has a tough act to follow after Jose Mourinho won the competition with the Serie A giants last season.
He is very familiar with the quality of the Spurs, having faced them several times in the English Premier League as Liverpool manager, and so will be taking care to cancel out the London club’s ability to break quickly and cause problems at Inter's end of
the pitch.
He told Italian website Tuttomercatoweb that, “Tottenham are a strong team with speed, quality and passion. They have quality players like [Peter] Crouch, Robbie Keane who I had at Liverpool, and [Gareth] Bale is doing very well. Tottenham are very dangerous
as a team because of their speed and the ability to develop counter-attacks."
Inter will host Harry Redknapp’s men on October 20. The sides are tied at the top of Group A, having each picked up four points against German Bundesliga side Werder Bremen and Dutch champions FC Twente.
Meanwhile, Benitez took the opportunity to joke about having difficulty adjusting to life in Italy and even having to make sure the colours of his ties and umbrellas were appropriate.
He said that, "At my presentation they gave me two ties, a black and blue one and one white. I couldn't take the first one because it's the same colour as (Liverpool’s fierce rivals) Everton. The other day I went to buy an umbrella. I could chose between
a red, blue and green one. Agata [his daughter] liked the red one, but I couldn't buy it because Inter is blue. So I bought the green one."
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