‘Playing with pressure is their bread and butter’ – Chivu lauds Stones, Jones in Inter win

Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.

Cristian Chivu believes playing with pressure is John Stones’ and Curtis Jones’ “bread and butter” after they helped Inter defeat Cagliari on Sunday.

Hakan Calhanoglu’s ninth-minute goal separated the two sides at Unipol Domus, with Inter sitting top of Serie A after the weekend’s action.

Stones and Jones both came on during the second half, and the former Manchester City defender played a key role in seeing out the win.

Stones won a match-high nine duels, including 100% of his aerial duels (6/6), while also leading the match in clearances (six).

Jones, meanwhile, completed 14 of his 15 passes and won two of his five duels in midfield.

“They have quality and experience, coming from Manchester City and Liverpool, so playing with a certain type of pressure is their bread and butter,” Chivu told Sky Sport Italia.

“They need to rediscover their fitness levels, John a little more courage to adapt to our style of football, but I have no complaints about their attitude.

“They put their soul and enthusiasm into it, so we are pleased to have them with us.”

— Inter  (@Inter_en) August 31, 2026

Among managers with at least 50 games in Serie A history, only Antonio Conte (66.3%) and Leonardo (60.7%) boast a higher win percentage than Chivu (60.4%), who has 32 wins from 53 matches.

Meanwhile, since his arrival at Inter in the 2021-22 season, Calhanoglu (15) is one of only three players to have scored 15 or more goals from outside the box across Europe’s top five leagues, alongside Harry Kane (16) and Kylian Mbappe (22).

Nevertheless, Chivu felt his side were playing with fire against Cagliari as they scored just once despite accumulating 3.67 expected goals (xG).

“These are your classic games where if you don’t kill them off, you can run into trouble,” Chivu added.

“We got a bit chaotic and stretched out in the second half, we panicked all by ourselves. We created a lot, so if there are any regrets, it’s that we didn’t convert more of the many scoring opportunities.

“It might not be good to suffer like this late on, but considering our fitness levels and the players who just came back from the World Cup, we leave Sardinia with three points and some more minutes in the legs of our players.

“Marcus Thuram managed 30 minutes too, Jones had his first, Stones adds some more minutes.”

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