Former Inter, Roma, AC Milan, and Real Madrid defender Christian Panucci feels that Inter need to do better to keep a compact defensive shape on the pitch.

Speaking to Italian broadcaster SportMediaset, Panucci gave his thoughts on the Nerazzurri’s defensive struggles at the start of the season and suggested that the backline are not being offered enough protection by the rest of the team.

Inter’s eight goals conceded from just five matches to start the season is not the kind of record that they’ll have been hoping that have at this stage of the campaign, and the factors behind it have been numerous.

Individual errors have played some role, but at the same time the sense has been that the team have been exceptionally easy to play through at times, especially for top-quality opponents, and this is something that has been observed since the start of the preseason.

Panucci gave the view that “Inter’s defensive trio is physically struggling, you can see that they are always having to run back. At the moment Inter are getting stretched out too easily, they aren’t defending as a team.”