Terzo

Mauro Icardi’s 50th career goal in 106 matches was also his 8th this season in the Serie A and was enough to lead Inter to their 9th 1-0 win this season. ‘Boring’ and ‘lucky’ Inter show that the defensive collapse against Lazio was just a one off occurence and go back to the top of the Serie A.

A new year but the same old Inter so far this season. It was anything but beautiful and crowdpleasing and in all honesty Empoli played better and created more but nonetheless Inter leave the Stadio Carlo Castellani with all 3 points. Critics call this Inter boring and lucky but when you have the best defense in the league and a prolific poacher up front who only needs half a chance, then it’s no longer luck, it’s class. As for the entertainment part, a glance at the standings and everyone may be bored except for the Inter faithful.

This was a very important win for Inter after the team “ruined Christmas” for themselves as Mancini put it after the loss against Lazio just before the break. Empoli are doing very well this season and coach Giampaolo have got them playing some very entertaining football, which they showed again tonight. However, Inter proved that their cynicism displayed before the Lazio debacle wasn’t just a fluke or down to good form but that the team has grown and is growing mentally and is demonstrating qualities which a top 3 team needs, qualities which the team has been lacking these past 5 years.

During the break Inter President Erick Thohir said that the goal remains to qualify for the Champions League, the players spoke about the Scudetto, but one thing is to talk about winning the title, another is to show that you mean business by delivering on the pitch. Although this performance wont go down in the glorious history of the Nerazzurri, it is a step on the way towards achieving the season’s objective of qualifying for the Champions League. There’s no doubt that Inter are en route to achieving this or even maybe more but then these conditions need to be fulfilled:

  • The team needs to continue to show the cynicism required in matches like they did today but also create more when going forward,
  • Handanovic needs to continue to dominate between the posts but cannot act as risky as he did today,
  • Murillo and Miranda keep playing the way they have but improve their passing,
  • Icardi can continue to be this clinical but the delivery to him has to improve,
  • and finally Roberto Mancini has to keep outcoaching his colleagues thw way he has so far this season.

Given how tight things are in the Serie A this season, the difference between qualifying for the Europa League or the Champions League and  maybe even winning the Scudetto will hinge on how well these criteria are met. For the time being yours truly is just going to enjoy looking at the Serie A standings.