Kondogbia available for the Derby d'Italia

At the end of the loss to Fiorentina Geoffrey Kondogbia was sent off for sarcastically applauding the referee. He was later hit with a two match ban for that action. When Brozovic picked up a booking during the Sampdoria match that also saw him pick up a suspension for yellow card accumulation. This made the only senior central midfielders available to Mancini for the upcoming Derby D'Italia Gary Medel, Felipe Melo, and Assane Gnoukouri (who has only started in the first match of the season and his next appearance was the most recent match against Samp).

Given this situation Inter appealed the two match suspension handed to Kondogbia and thankfully it has been reduced to only one game. Since he already sat out during the win against Sampdoria this means that he will be able to play on Sunday. Given Gnoukouri's lack of opportunities so far this season Mancini would have probably played a 442 with Medel and Melo (aka a thoroughly defensive midfield pairing with not a drop of creativity to spare) so this could be a massive boost for Mancini. I said could because while recently Kondogbia has begun to show more of the potential midfield dominance that made Inter splash the cash necessary to sign him, he still hasn't truly grown into his role here at the club. This match against Juventus will be a big test for him to show what he can do against the best team in the league. Hopefully his place in the team will be an asset, not a liability.