Today Inter played Verona away from home in a game that had a very weird texture to it, I found the tempo of the game very odd. I also saw a lot of different tactics that I’m not sure was purposely assigned to the team or if it was just the way they felt like playing today. Regardless, this wasn’t by any means one of Inter’s best games. I saw a few positive things but also some things that could have caused us the game if we were playing a stronger team. A team like Napoli or Juve would have very easily dismantled us and made us pay for our mistakes but thankfully we came out with the three points.
The first thing that impressed me was once again, as I have said before, the key to a successful team, midfielders contributing to goals. This is very important because no matte how many goals your striker will score, he can never score enough. Valero’s goal was important because of the way it happened. Both defenders marking Icardi allowing Candreva to just send it in beautiful to a wide open Borja Valero in the six yard box.
This brings me to my next point that I found very strange, since the 1st minute of the game, Candreva took possession we saw Perisic drift in very high and very central and when Perisic had the ball Candreva did the same thing. I found this style very odd and I really don’t think that it should be reused for the simple reason that Inter’s success comes from the flanks more often than from the center of the pitch. I think that our wingers should take the ball from wide and then preferably drift in with the ball at their feet or on an overlap. If they don’t do it this way, it would leave the left and right back alone which would give the opposition the chance to change the ball horizontally and once their wing back gets involved, unless Candreva and Perisic grind back incredibly fast, they have numbers going up against us on the wing.
The reason this was so strange for me is because Spalletti’s soccer with Inter this season was based very strongly on having almost all 11 behind the ball at all times and all of a sudden they were either instructed differently ( which I highly doubt) or they didn’t stick to their instructions.
Lastly, besides that minor tactical detail, I think Inter played very well, they had a few instances with a lack of focus but picked themselves up well. No major mistakes but a few poor decisions which luckily didn’t really result in anything to serious. I was more concerned with the positioning up top instead of what was going on in the very functional defence and midfield.
