Wasteful Inter

The curse of January has reared its ugly head in the second match week of the month. There were at least three members of Sampdoria with past connections to Inter. Manager Claudio Ranieri managed us in the 2011-12 season, inheriting it from Gian Piero Gasperini and getting sacked before the season ended. Antonio Candreva, the scorer of the first goal is on loan from Inter and Keita Balde Diao, on loan at Inter for the 2018-19 season, scored the second goal.


Wasteful Finishing

Part of the reason for Inter’s early and disappointing exit from Europe would have to be because of our profligacy. We might be the top scorers in Italy this season but that profligate streak came back to sting us in this match. We started the match brightly and were creating chances to score. Ashley Young forced Emil Audero into a save and Milan Skriniar placed his shot just wide. We received a lifeline from the referee when he awarded us a penalty for a handball in the box. It was soft because it looked unintentional but applying the letter of the law, it was legitimate. Alexis Sanchez’s penalty was feeble and from the rebound, Young smashed his shot against the crossbar. Lautaro Martinez had a chance to score in the first half with the score at 0-2 but placed his header wide. In the second half, we finally scored through Stefan de Vrij but wasted so many chances to score more.

I don’t agree with Antonio Conte that Lady Luck forgot us because it had to do with more than just luck. The fault lies in our players' failure to find the back of the net. I don’t believe it had anything to do with Romelu Lukaku’s absence too. Had we taken the lead and more of our chances, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. He probably wouldn’t even be risked. Audero had a good game to keep out some of our attempts but in fairness, he wasn’t stretched for most of our attempts as they were hit centrally or close to him.

Ex-Men With A Vengeance

I felt the same way for the penalty awarded against us as I did for the one awarded for us. From the early exchanges, it looked like Candreva was fired up and wanted to prove us wrong. Unlike Sanchez, he made no mistake from the penalty spot. For the second goal, Mikkel Damsgaard went on a great run. His run made our defenders look slow and leggy. However, having said that, Samir Handanovic should have done better to keep out Balde’s shot. It wasn’t the most powerful shot, to begin with. Once again, putting more doubt on his ability to be the goalkeeper of a title or cup-winning team.

Big Matches Coming Up

Let’s hope this result is just a blip and not a sign of things to come this month. We have a tough match coming up against one of our closest rivals, Roma on Sunday. We have only won one match against one of our closest rivals this season and that too was a match won and not convincingly. We will take victories in these matches whichever way it comes. I hope we saved our goals for the next two matches. 

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