Last night Inter played Torino in this seasons home opener which started off with such a fantastic first half. Unfortunately, the first half was followed by a collapse which saw Inter become the team that was playing with their backs against the wall. All though on the surface of it all, some may say the collapse of Inter can be the fault of the fullbacks and a Goalkeeping error but if one were to just take a deeper look it would be very easy to understand that these errors stem from much deeper and more proficient issues and not just superficial miscalculations.
Spalletti started the game in a 3-4-3 which worked fairly well because the front three wasn’t in a horizontal line which made the shape more of a 3-4-2-1. This allowed Politano and Perisic to assist Brozovic and Vecino in the ball recuperations in the midfield. On top of that Spalletti had two defensive minded players playing out wide in Asamoah and Vrasljko which contributed even more to the defensive aspect of the entire eleven. But when the shape changed to 4-2-3-1 after Inter was up 2-1 thats when the vulnerability of midfield truly began to show.
Both goals came from down the middle of the field, the first goal saw the midfield outnumbered and it was basically Brozovic alone, having to deal with three players. All it took was a couple of passes strung together to remove Brozovic from the equation which isolates Vecino who was nearly a ghost in todays fixture. This results in Iago Falque being able to have a near infinite amount of time to be able to put in an incredibly juicy ball for Belotti and only then was Handanovic forced to make a decision which unfortunately was the wrong one. The second goal was off the corner which saw the entire team attracted to the ball at the first post like little children who must touch the ball, this left a gaping whole at the top of the box that Perisic tried so hard to close down but just couldn’t handle it.
With that being said the problem last night was a complete lack of a midfield in the second half after the formation was changed which left Brozovic completely isolated, the fact that there was no number ten made it extremely tough to link the play between the midfield and the forwards. These small things leave Inter with an extreme hunger to want to make severe adjustments in the midfield. Either add an extra body or add quality with Radja or even Lautaro Martinez in the number 10 role.
In conclusion, the midfield needs to be dominant in of itself and shouldn’t have to rely so heavily on the formation and the players within that said formation to cover its faults which were clearly exposed when they were set with the tasks of standing on their own two feet.