Ahead of next month’s first Derby D’Italia of the season between Inter and Juventus at San Siro, Gazzetta dello Sport have looked at the state of each club.
Starting with the strengths, The Milan based news outlet point out Inter’s water-tight defence, with them having conceded just one goal across their five Serie A games played so far. Conte has had Inter continually performing to a high standard, even when he has rotated the team. When it comes to Juventus, their main strength is the fact they have more individual quality than the Nerazzurri do.
When it comes to weaknesses, Inter’s over-reliance on Stefano Sensi, poor playing off the ball out of the defence and Lautaro Martinez and Romelu Lukaku’s partnership still not perfect are theirs.
Juventus’ weaknesses are the injuries to Mattia De Sciglio, Douglas Costa, Giorgio Chiellini and Danilo and the fact that Maurizio Sarri has had to adapt to a lot early doors this season.
Mentally speaking, Conte knows that if he wants his Inter team to compete for as long as possible they cannot have a drop.
Sarri is meanwhile not like Conte when it comes to this topic as he takes a more visceral approach with his players and has mutual appreciation with his players.
In terms of team chemistry, Inter have already shown what Conte wants of them in pressing, building out from the back and the midfield being decisive at both ends but all these components have never been seen at once. Conte’s character is already visible in the team though.
Sarri meanwhile knows that his Juventus will never be able to match his Napoli side. There has been some chemistry lacking from some individuals such as Emre Can, who is not happy with his playing time.
Finally, when it comes to how the new signings have got on, Inter’s, for the most part have all done well, namely Stefano Sensi, Nicolo Barella, Diego Godin, Romelu Lukaku and Cristiano Biraghi whilst Valentino Lazaro and Alexis Sanchez haven’t had many opportunities to impress.
Gonzalo Higuain’s rediscovered form has Sarri feeling as if he is almost like a new player whilst Danilo, Matthijs de Ligt, Demiral and Adrien Rabiot have all discovered. The only new signing to have made a positive impact is Aaron Ramsey.
