Article 83 — Inter Rises To 2nd & The Scudetto That No-One Wants To Win
After a long time, I finally got to watch an Inter match from the start to the end. But I knew I needed the artificial stimulant of caffeine to keep me awake for the duration of the match. I didn’t expect the pace to be high in this match with fixtures overload taking an effect on both teams.
Inter had won the reverse fixture comfortably 4–0 just before Christmas and were top of the table then while Genoa ended that match bottom of the league. So much has changed for both teams. Inter have lost the fluidity in their play and are trailing Juventus by seven points in third place before kickoff. Genoa had just posted two massively important wins, one against their rivals for the relegation spot, Lecce and another in the Derby della Lanterna against Sampdoria to sit four points clear of the drop zone.
This is how the match went this morning:
I was right to expect a slow pace to the game. Inter got it down to pedestrian pace after taking the lead. Genoa had the better of the opening exchanges but we slowly grew into the game and played some good football to fashion some chances. The goal we scored had a surreal feel in the sense that when Cristian Zapata fell to the floor as the cross came in and Romelu Lukaku nodded in the opener, you expected the referee to blow for a foul. The referee didn’t blow for the foul and after watching the highlights, the referee was vindicated.
In the second half, Genoa started believing and pressing for an equaliser with about 20 minutes left but thankfully this time we didn’t concede and Inter scored their second at the right time with seven minutes left to kill off the game. Lukaku then added gloss to the result with a late solo goal. Overall, it was an uninspiring match. Inter were trying to conserve their energy having played in a late kickoff two days before while Genoa was looking forward to their last two matches of the season as deciders for their season.
It still wasn’t the best Inter performance, not at the level of the first half of the season but it was an important result. It was more needs must, the result before aesthetic. I guess we would be expected to see more of that approach for the duration of this season.
Now for some statistics. Romelu Lukaku is, without doubt, our best, most consistent striker this season. With his two goals, he became the first player since Ronaldo in 1997–98 to score 23 Serie A goals in his debut season. He overtook Diego Milito and Amedeo Amadei into 3rd place as Inter’s best goalscorers in their debut season with 23 goals. Only Ronaldo with 25 goals and Stefano Nyers with 26 goals have done better. With 29 goals across all competitions, this is the most he has scored in a season. The current points tally of 76 points is the most Inter has had in a season since 2010–11 when we finished 2nd. The match yesterday was also Inter’s 3000th in Serie A, the most of any Italian club having never been relegated to Serie B.
Lautaro Martinez is looking increasingly out of sorts. He had another poor game with just glimpses of what he is capable of. Not sure if he has got his head turned by Barcelona or is just undergoing a poor run of form. It is harsh but at this rate, it might be wise to cash in on him and invest into the squad. I would love for him to recover his form for the remainder of this season and to keep him beyond this season but if his heart is not with Inter, it would best to cash in on him.
Alexis Sanchez came off the bench to score and is our next most in-form striker after Lukaku. His future is still up in the air as both my favourite clubs negotiate the terms of his contract so that he stays for the duration of Inter’s participation in the Europa League and beyond that. Let’s see what happens with that.
Victor Moses had a decent game. On more than one occasion, he took on his man, beat him to get a cross in. He assisted the second goal for Sanchez by doing just that. I have no complaints on his performance but I doubt Inter will keep him beyond this season after the signing of Achraf Hakimi. On the opposite flank, Cristiano Biraghi looks to be playing better. There were some erroneous play in his passing in the final third and defensively he didn’t have much to do. His assist for Lukaku to open the scoring was his fifth of the season matching his personal record in a season.
Borja Valero was spoken of highly by Antonio Conte as a life saviour in centre midfield as he has missed Stefano Sensi and Matias Vecino for long periods this season. When I first saw him play for Inter in the 2017 International Champions Cup in Singapore, I was impressed by his reading of the game and his passing. Since then, he has not had an Andrea Pirlo type impact on the team and has been criticised by fans for being slow. I felt that at times, yes he has looked slow and like he is approaching the end of his career but lately he has been steady showing all his experience and commitment to the cause. I remember at the start of the season when Conte had his full selection of midfielders, Valero hardly got a look in. Today, he came on and steadied the ship as we were beginning to get overwhelmed by Genoa’s attacks.
I thought Andrea Ranocchia had a great game played with intensity and determination. He made one mistake giving the ball away as he played the ball out from the back but thankfully he was not punished. He is another player that is regularly criticised by Inter fans. Now it’s Roberto Gagliardini who is getting the brunt of the fire from Inter fans more so after his horrific miss against Sassuolo and especially for what it meant in the context of the game and the league. I have always liked him since he joined us but mistakes like that and the miskick that allowed Bologna to equalise on the way to beating us makes it tough to defend him. I do hope that he comes good. He will be suspended for the next match against Napoli after impressively being omnipresent in the team since the restart.
Now on the Scudetto title race. When the season was forcibly suspended at the end of February, Lazio had overtaken Inter to be the closest challengers to Juventus. They were on a massive run of 21 games unbeaten and had the benefit of only concentrating on one game per week. Juventus, being Juventus were top but not at all impressive. There was a feeling that they could be caught and if there was a season that would happen, it would be this season.
Since football restarted, I was intrigued to see how the teams would cope playing so many matches close to one another and without any fans spurring them on in the stadium. Logically, it would benefit the team with the deepest squad depth with quality. Juventus were favourites for that reason and for the experience and winning mentality they possess. They started the return of football shakily, failing to score in two games and losing the Coppa Italia to Napoli. But then normal service resumed and they started racking up wins. Until the last five matches. They have won only one game in five, losing twice and drawing twice. In both draws, they needed to come from behind to draw. They needed a late penalty to draw against Atalanta in one of those draws.
Despite their squad depth, they look to be on shaky grounds suffering from the overload of fixtures physically and mentally on the players. I had fully expected them with their eyes closed to beat Udinese in the previous match week to seal their 9th Scudetto in a row but was stunned to find out that Udinese had beaten them. Juventus just needs three points to seal the title, it can come from one win or three draws and I don’t expect anything less than a win against Sampdoria to seal the Scudetto in this match week.
I was interested to see how long Lazio could keep their unbeaten run going and if they did lose or drop points, how would they respond. We have seen in the past with the examples of Napoli and Roma who implode in the title race after their run of good form comes to an end. The pressure of being in a title race and being expected to win every step of the way was another test for this Lazio. All that came to nought when their lack of squad depth was exposed. With injuries and fatigue, Lazio has dropped from 2nd to 4th. It would still be a good season for them and they should head back into the Champions League after 13 years if Napoli don’t win the Champions League and Roma don’t win the Europa League. Maybe they might have overtaken Juventus or stay close by had it been a regular season where they played once a week. We will never know.
As for us, Antonio Conte has justification in pointing out a fixture list that afforded little rest to us. He has been unlucky to be deprived of a number of his key midfielders too but we know that Inter had already started imploding from before the enforced break. Supporters of Inter would be very familiar with the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde form of Inter, one that does very well in the first half of the season and then suffers a blackout in the second half of it. On paper, Inter has the best-equipped squad to take on Juventus but we have dropped so many points from before this period to the detriment of our title challenge. We are left with the greatest regret of not sustaining our form and showing greater mental strength and resilience. That is linked with the regret of losing so many points from a winning position. Conte has written off our chances of winning the Scudetto but if Juventus have an unlikely slip-up, we are actually in a good position to capitalise, unlikely as it seems now.
Atalanta has been the most in-form team among the Top Four teams and stands a very good chance of finishing 2nd if they continue in a similar vein or even the Scudetto if Juventus have an unlikely slip-up. They have drawn two games in their last five matches and those draws have come against Juventus and an in-form AC Milan team.
It’s over to Juventus now. By tomorrow morning, I expect Juventus to be solemnised as league champions. Football and life are unpredictable. Would there be more twists? We don’t know. Very, very, very, very likely Juventus and their experienced campaigners will see through it.
