A rampant Inter dominated today’s match against Atalanta at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia in Bergamo, which is also reflected in the ratings below:
Samir Handanovic – 5,5: Not as dominant as we’re used to seeing him. Did what he needed to do but nothing more. Didn’t stand a chance on the goal.
Hugo Campagnaro – 5,5: Didn’t go up & down the flank to help put in attack but isn’t expected to do so either. Showed stability in defense.
Andrea Ranocchia – 6: Got absolutely destroyed in the air by Pinilla for Atalanta’s equalizer, which was his only mistake of the match. Costly one again.
Juan Jesus – 6: As tough & mean as he always is but not dirty. Sure, he got booked for a foul but is becoming more & more polished.
Davide Santon -6,5: Reached almost 95% passing accuracy today as he was running up & down that left side helping out in attack & defense. Solid.
Gary Medel – 7: Pitbull indeed. Won every 50-50 ball as well as saving a certain goal when he blocked a shot in the first half. Fundamentally important.
Fredy Guarin – 9: Best performance by the Colombian in an Inter shirt. Won a penalty in the 2nd minute 6 followed it up by 2 great goals & 1 assist.
Marcelo Brozovic – 7: Embodies exactly everything that Inter have needed but have lacked in the past few years in midfield. Ball-winner & distributer in 1.
Xherdan Shaqiri – 7,5: Played behind the 2 strikers & barely managed to score from the penalty spot as well as getting an assist for Guarin’s 2nd goal.
Rodrigo Palacio – 6,5: Q: What is it that runs & runs but never gets anywhere? A: Rodrigo Palacio anno 2014/2015. Hopefully the goal can boost his confidence.
Lukas Podolski – 5,5: Completely invisible for 90 minutes which is very disappointing given that he finally got to play as 1 of 2 central strikers.
Mateo Kovacic – 5: Came on in the 68th min for Shaqiri but didn’t manage to make any imprint on the match at all. Doesn’t deserve to start at the minute.
Hernanes – 5: Was brought on in the 76th minute replacing Rodrigo Palacio. Did what was asked of him as the match was practically over by then.
Zdravko Kuzmanovic – no rating: Brought on in 82nd minute 6 played too short of a time to be able to be graded.
Roberto Mancini – 7: Got his tactics spot on today & led Inter to first win in Bergamo against Atalanta in 7 years, back when Inter was coached by himself.
Inter (overall performance) – 7,5: Dominated one of the most difficult away matches of the season and scored 4 goals. Best performance under Mancini.
Referee Luca Banti – 7: Was bang on the money in every important decision he made: from giving Guarin a penalty to not giving Atalanta two penalty for alleged handball as replays show there was no contact between ball and hand. The red card was completely justfied. The Serie A referee’s get heavily criticized so it’s only fair to praise them when deserved.
Guarin played a part in all 4 goals but I’m most impressed as how he stood between shaqiri and 4 atalanta players. He’s done that a couple times this season for his teammates.
Don’t be too carried away. None of tonight’s goals produced by decent build up play. If Atalanta’s back line were on the right foot or Guarin was on his brainless mode, there’s strong possibility we’d thrown the points again.
Kovacic: didn’t manage to make any imprint on the match at (ALL) WOW, Doesn’t deserve to start at the minute?! the hypocrisy he says about Hernanes : Did what was asked of him as the match was practically over by then?!!!!
Kovacic showed his quality when he stepped inside the pitch, he linked passes faster and helped keep momentum in the team, that move where he did cut inside the box and pass back, dribbling pass Atalanta midfield when they were pressing, he did what was supposedly asked of him to do… 68th is late in the game you should have excluded him like others or have been more critical and not just he had no impact???? how do you define impact?? goals??? assist?? defending?? keeping possession??
tell us what you disliked and earned him this score?
I can see Hernanes would be leaving this summer if Shaq, Brozo and Guarin kept their flying forms like today. He did nothing when he came. That’s sucks, because we paid 20 million euro for him last year, darn that’s a lot of money for us. Podolski was also really disappointing so far. Thanks god, it was just a loan without obligation to buy. Kovacic looked very static and undetermined. Hopefully, he will be back to his top soon. Otherwise, He would lose his starting position very soon.
Brozo and Medel were amazing. They were the dynamo of Mancio’s new Inter. Tackling, bullying and bossing the midfield like a deadly combo of Mario and Luigi of Mario Bros game lol. Because of them, Guaro has more space to help the attackers and advance closer to the box. Shaq? simply awesome in the trequartista with his vision, effective dribbling and passing. Santon has been really great on the fullback position so far. Ranocchia? He should give that armband to JJ5 next year. Period. Overall, decent performance from the lads. Now I can face Monday with the smile on my face 🙂
We can’t sell Hernanes now he is close to 30 yo.
I think he has to stay with reduced salary. He can really help a lot, from the bench and against good teams.
It’s interesting how you can make general conclusions after a few successful or dreadful games? Just before few weeks almost everybody wants inconsistent birdshooter to be sold, now he’s the hero and one of the best in the world!!! What you expect Hernanes to show, when he’s not playing regularly and when he’s got a chance is for around twenty minutes in the end of the game? Same about Medel, some games he’s the pit bull, can take back every ball and cover the whole field, other he’s almost invisible and can’t make a single pass. Shaqiri have enormous potential and huge room for improvement and i think that his best position is behind the strikers, but today he was miles away from awesome. Many wrong passes, wrong decisions in the final third, bad ball control, the penalty wasn’t save enough executed and Sportiello was very close to save it. What i mean is that fans shouldn’t make judgments after few good or bad games, let’s see how the season will ends and then to make general conclusions.
Dude, what’s wrong with you? Chill and calm down. I’ve never made a premature conclusion or offensive judgements, just read again my opinions above slowly. I just stated what I saw in the game and the last game. Did I worship Guarin above? Please enlighten me. I just said that he did well in his last two games, same with Brozo and Medel. Hopefully, they will continue their forms. While for Hernanes, a player that we brought for 20 million euros, of course we should have expected much bigger contributions from him not for bench warming. Even when he was on the starting lineup, he barely impressed us. Lack of speed, fitness and consistency. For that huge money, of course I’m not happy at all with him especially this season. If you’re not on the same boat with me regarding this, no problem. I have my own opinions, you have your own. No big deal. Why so serious? For Shaq, with that kind of poor field condition, basic mistakes like that definitely cannot be avoided. Even CR7 or Messi would be messed up in that field. So please calm down and relax, we just got six points from the last two games.
Im very calm, why you think the opposite? Probably we have different opinions and i don’t have problem at all with that. What i don’t like is general conclusions who’s big deal (in this case Guarin with two good games and dozens huge failures, not only this season, but since he arrived) and who’s big flop. I myself expect more from Hernanes. He have problems with fitness and injuries, but believe me despite everything until now, he’s much more consistent compared to Guarin.
Palacio was bad… really bad.. even his goal was just a rebound from a defender and into his feet… and kova was a lot better than palacio – he actually held the ball quite well
The amusing part is that Kova (not a striker or second striker) Would do abetter job than either Podolski or Palacio.
Shaqiri can play secend striker and kova get his place (behind the forwards) . Anyway I trust manco . if he want to play palacio i am ok with this .
It’s not like he had a choice anyway. Icardi podolski and palacio are our only stikers and icardi couldn’t play due to being sick. We really need another striker, I’m sure we won’t buy podolski and palacio can’t regain his form and he is 32. If icardi gets injured we are screwed
Yes, definitely. We need another striker (and a defender) for making the team stronger. Our midfielder is a beast right now
Agreed, Kova behind the two strikers. But I need to comment, the Shaq brought the German experience to the game. Blitzkrieg, a lightning fast transition, we don’t normally deploy. while he was fast to move the ball, his passing was also less accurate than Kova’s passing.
Well Mancio has a good problem…Shaq vs Kovo
5 for kovacic 6 for ranocchia and also 6.5 for palacio is a joke. right ?
Why would it be? Kovačič did nothing, zero impact. Anyway, Ranocchia should have 5.5 though and Palacio 6 as they did nothing with the exception of the lucky goal Palacio got. Podolski to 5 too, invisible, Santon up to 7, Guarin up to 9.5. Mancini 8.
Mateo Kovacic created three chances in 23 minutes. Only Shaqiri created more (4).