Inter played Bologna today in Bologna and it was not their best performance at all. They looked very tired from the back all the way to the top. Inter tied the game for several reasons today especially when it came to sticking to the game plan which led to Bologna being able to exploit them off the counter looking very dangerous moving up on the odd man rushes.
First of all, I strongly believe that Dalbert should have started over Nagatomo for the sole reason of qualities of crosses into the box. His pace up and down the wing would have been a perfect quality in opening up space for Perisic which could have changed the outcome of the game completely. Another problem that Inter had today was that the quality of almost every single cross was horrendous. A large amount of Persic’s crosses were blocked and on the other side Candreva’s crosses were terrible all going way to short.
Something else to take away from the draw was that we needed to make Bologna feel much more threatened off the set pieces. It’s not normal that none of Inter’s 11 corners made Bologna feel threatened with all of them falling way to short of our key set piece winners’ heads such as Icardi, Skriniar, Miranda, Perisic; all players who prove to be very capable time after time in winning balls in the air.
In a game like today, I think that Spalletti should have given Karamoh an opportunity by subbing him for Candreva in maybe the 75th minute, at that point we were still down one for another two minutes. Karamoh’s pace would have forced Bologna’s backline to back each other up which would have opened up space in the middle possibly leading to a goal from Icardi’s explosiveness.
The problem with today’s game was that Inter didn’t play like themselves, almost as if they lacked confidence which they shouldn’t have considering they had won four straight. The way Inter has to play under Spalletti is with their grit and personality. Inter has to start the game with confidence and dictate the pace from the get go. We cannot let any other team dominate us or else we will implode and lose focus. We need Borja, Vecino and Joao Mario to be present on the field they need to decide the way this game is going to be played and not be bullied by other teams especially bottom table teams.
The second problem with our performance today was that once we went down the goal, we were looking for whats supposed to be the miracle. A long ball to Perisic or Icardi which would result in the tie instead of playing the way they did against Roma a few weeks back. We had to stay patient and the goal would have came off a nice build up. I feel that because we played a weaker team, we felt like we had something to prove which in turn back fired and resulted in disorganization and errors.
Lastly, what could have changed the course of the game was maybe testing the keeper a bit more. I think that we didn’t take enough shots on the keeper and he wasn’t really tested during the game. We have players who can shoot but for some reason they were all looking for the perfect play instead of trying their luck. All in all we move on with our one point to take on Genoa in Milano.
