Inter took on Napoli today in what was an incredibly tactical battle by both Spalletti and Sarri. Inter probably played one of their most competitive games in a very long time and all though it was an a 0-0 game, for any soccer lover. The game consisted of Sarri lining up his usual 11 while Inter lined up slightly differently which saw the back line lined up normally but the defensive midfielders were Gagliardini and Brozovic who absolutely had an incredible game. Brozovic had such a big defensive game that I think nobody would have ever expected him to play.
Napoli seemed to lack that finishing in the final third which consequentially led to the draw because I think most of the Inter world didn’t expect Inter to produce as well as they did. A very clear problem with Inter was that since Napoli wasn’t overlapping as aggressively as they usually do, Candreva and Perisic weren’t able to exploit the wide spaces which cut out the supply to Icardi. Both coaches set their teams up with specific instructions that would allow them to not concede. While Napoli looked like the more creative team who were able to control the pace of the game but Inter looked to produce very scary counter attacks and were able to look threatening off the set pieces.
Defensively, Inter looked incredibly solid with the wingbacks being able to really box out the wingers and cut out the small passes as often as possible until the second half when Cancelo moved to the left and D’Ambrosio to the right. The purpose of this switch was probably for Cancelo’s pace to keep up with Callejon and for D’Ambrosio to be strong and physical on Insigne.Miranda and Skriniar played completely air tight tonight, they completely shut down any of Napoli’s quick attacking chances and the one on ones were always won by Inter, especially Skriniar.
Going forward, the defensive midfielders played fantastic in regards to how well they complemented each other and their was nothing to say about because they did their jobs in both bothering Napoli ball carriers as well as recycling and turning the balls. Up top to adapt the to Napoli’s play, Spalletti should have put on Karamoh instead of Eder. He should’ve taken Rafinha off for Karamoh move Candreva central and play Karamoh wide and that would have generated a lot more problems down the middle because Napoli did a phenomenal job at shutting down our wide production.
