Today, Inter played Atalanta, in what was a fall that was bound to happen at some point in the season. The result of today’s game can be attributed to many factors such as the actual temperature, fatigue and most importantly a poor tactical approach which inevitably led to the result after ninety minutes.

Spalletti tried to mould his tactical decisions based on the way he thought Atalanta would perform, unfortunately he got it completely wrong in this case. Spalletti’s men lined up in a 4–3-3 which saw D’Ambrosio, Skriniar, Miranda and Asamoah at the back, Vecino, Brozovic and Gagliardini in the middle and Perisic, Icardi and Politano as the front three. 

The first mistake is that Spalletti based his approach to the game on Atalanta instead of from a dominant point of view which would have forced Atalanta to change their game plan. The problem here was that against a 3-5-2 formation like Atalanta’s, you have to play with something very wide like our standard 4-2-3-1 or if he wants to spice things up 4-4-2 or even get crazy with a 5-4-1 with overly committed wing backs. When you opt to play a midfield three versus a midfield five, you leave the entire back line exposed which is what happened in today’s fixture. 

With a 4-3-3 against a 3-5-2 that midfield three is under to much strain because when the wide players in the five have the ball the outside player in Inter’s three is forced to come outside and support the winger. What Atalanta did very well was winning the 50/50 battles on the outside to drag even more of the Inter men out wide. This left gaping wholes in the middle of the field which allowed Atalanta to drive into the middle seeing the remainder of Atalanta’s midfield versus only Brozovic because the opposite midfielder is forced to shut down the oncoming Atalanta wing back. The problem in this shaping match up is that in every, nearly infinite, scenario Atalanta has too many easy and effective options to either get out of trouble or put us in trouble. 

In conclusion, Inter just came off seven straight wins and it’s not such a big deal to let one slip from time to time, at the end of the day, every team is allowed to have a bad day, and today was that day to reveal an off shade of the Nerrazzuri, let them take their break, regroup, sort themselves out and move on.