Inter played Torino away from home in a game that looked like everyone was taking a long nap against an opposition that they thought would have been a walk in the park to play against.
Luciano Spalletti opted to line up in a 3-5-2/3-4-1-2 which inevitably meant that setting the team up in an unfamiliar shape will logically be a gamble. Unfortunately in this specific case, it seemed to have back fired in a negative manner. The eleven consisted of Samir Handanovic in goals, Milan Skriniar, Stefan de Vrij and Miranda in the back three with Dalbert, Matias Vecino, Joao Mario, Marcelo Brozovic and Danilo D’Ambrosio in the midfield and Lautaro Martinez and Mauro Icardi up top.
The problem with this specific formation is that both of the players on the wing were defenders with two defensively minded players sandwiched in between leaving just Joao Mario there to provide for the front two. It made the flow of the game very choppy and very scripted. This is why the defending throughout the game wasn’t absolutely horrendous compared to the play going forward. This caused the team to be unable to move forward collectively which meant they were just launching balls forward praying for Icardi and Martinez to get to them and get wide. The problem is that once that actually happens the wingers lack the attacking ability to create something in the one-on-one’s on the wings. At the end of the day it all comes down to the fundamentals and Inter just couldn’t get it right going forward.
Another problem in this game was that there was absolutely no creativity and/or movement off the ball. In regards to creativity, every single pass of the ball looked incredibly scripted which made them incredibly easy to anticipate by Torino’s midfield. Nobody wanted to take on players and nobody wanted to take on the responsibility of bringing that extra spark to the team. With regards to the movement of the players without the ball, there was absolutely no movement no third man runs, nothing. The ideal in a midfield reliant formation such as this one is that a midfielder always makes the run from the middle to the wide sector of the box, ideally it would’ve been Vecino. Another third man run could have been that both attackers attack the near post and opposite side winger attacks the space left by the defenders following the forwards. Unfortunately, what we got from this formation was an incredibly defensive team and generic attacking movements.
In conclusion, Inter needed more attack minded wingers and a lot more movement off the ball to be able to generate anything at all in a formation that is supposed to be very balanced. All they can do now is put this one behind them and move forward to the next match.
