Inter were made to pay for another slow start in yesterday’s loss away to Sampdoria, according to an Italian media report.
La Stampa described the defeat at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris as an ‘enormous opportunity missed’, after Alexis Sanchez saw his penalty saved by Emil Audero inside the opening 15 minutes.
After another poor first-half performance, criticised as ‘insufficient’ by the Turin-based paper, which left the Nerazzurri 2-0 down, Antonio Conte’s side had it all to do in the second 45 minutes at a very wet Marassi stadium.
Stefan de Vrij pulled one back for the visitors but the Nerazzurri could not stop themselves from falling to a first away defeat in the league since March last year as their eight-game winning streak in Serie A was ended.
Conte described it as a strange game post-match and whilst this is partly true, the paper argued it was inevitable that eventually they would be punished for starting games slowly, having fallen behind against Crotone only last Sunday before recovering to win.
There is of course still plenty of time for Inter to make up for this defeat but next up in the league they will face Roma before taking on arch rivals Juventus the following weekend.
Inter now must get up and move on quickly as both Conte and Alessandro Bastoni were quick to acknowledge post match and they could perhaps do this with Stefano Sensi on the field, whom La Stampa argued should have been brought on in the second half.
