Genoa 2-0 Inter: Player Ratings

Inter’s winter of discontent took another turn for the worse as Genoa condemned them to their third defeat of the season at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.

An own goal from Andrea Ranocchia and a strike from former Inter player Goran Pandev saw Davide Ballardini’s men claimed a deserved victory, and leaves the Nerazzurri on the brink of slipping out of Serie A’s UEFA Champions League spots for the first time this season.

Below are our player ratings from a terrible night at Marassi. A match recap will be up in due course.

Starting XI

Samir Handanovic - 4.5

One of his worst performances of the season, and that’s never comforting news. After getting away with a bizarre misjudgement early on as Pandev’s cross hit the post, he then contributed to Genoa’s opening goal by failing to communicate with Skriniar as that innocuous cross floated into the box. Poor when asked to come out of his goal too. Bad.

Joao Cancelo - 5.5

One of the most baffling statistics about Inter’s season is that they’ve only won 1 of the 7 league matches that he’s started. Even on a hideous evening for Inter he confirmed the improvements he’s made to the defensive side of his game this season, holding his own against a perennially tricky customer in Diego Laxalt, and once again he was one of our most credible threats going forward.

Andrea Ranocchia - 4.5

An own goal that pre-Hull Froggy would have been proud of. It wasn’t his fault but that won’t be of much comfort to him, or to anyone in fact. Even leaving that unfortunate moment to one side his performance wasn’t the greatest. Miranda will be straight back into the team next week.

Milan Skriniar - 5

If Skriniar starts making silly mistakes then Inter really are in trouble. He showed flashes of his normal self but it’s impossible to look past that own goal, for which he carries a significant portion of the blame. Oh dear.

Danilo D’Ambrosio - 4.5

He isn’t a left back and that is an excuse up to a certain point, but it doesn’t justify the array of basic technical errors he committed during this match. Even the simplest of things are proving difficult for this team at the moment and Danilo is no exception in that sense. Aleandro Rosi certainly enjoyed his evening up against him.

Matias Vecino - 5

He wasn’t the worst, but he wasn’t the best either. And that’s Vecino for you in a nutshell. Useful tactically in the first half but not particularly influential. Taken off for Rafinha after an hour.

Roberto Gagliardini - 4.5

He’s not a player Inter can count on when things get tough and he demonstrated it again here. His ceiling is low and we’re not even anywhere near that at the moment. At least he got a good close-up view of Pandev doubling Genoa’s lead.

Yann Karamoh - 5

Sadly he wasn’t capable of repeating last Sunday’s heroics, but nobody can expect him to play like that every weekend at his age. Inter needed him to see off Bologna and he could have played a decisive role in another victory here, had he not spurned a glorious opportunity early on, but ultimately it wasn’t to be. Fairly involved in the second half but without ever creating anything dangerous.

Borja Valero - 4.5

He isn’t a trequartista and it’s blindingly obvious to every living organism on the planet. But there are also physical issues. Borja can only manage 20-25 good performances per season at his age, and considering that he hasn’t had a rest all season we’ll be lucky to get even that out of him now. Impalpable both behind Eder and deeper in midfield.

Antonio Candreva - 5

Spalletti moved him over to the left wing in order to keep Karamoh in his favoured position, and the results were somewhat predictable. So-so in the first half with a couple of bright initiatives, virtually invisible in the second.

Éder - 5

You can rarely fault him for work-rate and effort, but he was barely served at all and when he did get on the ball he was often imprecise. He’s not quite the goal threat Icardi is, but we didn’t need this match to tell us that.

Substitutes

Rafinha - 5.5

Unlike against Crotone and Bologna he was unable to shake his teammates into action, although he did provide a couple of flashes immediately after coming on. Hopefully he’ll be fit enough to start in the derby in two weeks, if not against Benevento next Saturday. Otherwise there really is no hope.

Marcelo Brozovic - N/A

He came on and he did nothing. Well I never.

Andrea Pinamonti - N/A

After six months of sitting on the bench he finally got the chance to make his second appearance in Serie A with 15 minutes left, but he was powerless to change the inertia of the match. Still, another important moment in his very young career.

Head Coach

Luciano Spalletti - 4

He isn’t the primary culprit of this collapse (and it would be ridiculous to think he were), but when a team of Inter’s stature has only picked up 1 win in their last 10 games then nobody is blameless. Whatever buttons he’s tried to push during the last few weeks he’s received absolutely no response from his players, and at this point it’s difficult to imagine them providing one between now and the end of the season. One of this team’s most serious problems is that they have no leaders.

You can waste time bemoaning his team selections and tactical decisions if you want, but there really is no point. We’ve seen this film way too many times to not know what the real problem is here.

Man of the Match - Joao Cancelo

It almost feels crass nominating a Man of the Match after a display as insipid as that, but I’ll give it to Cancelo seeing as he didn’t embarrass himself too much. (Yes, the bar is that low at the moment.)

But the fact that he’s been one of our most consistent performances since Christmas is only more cause for frustration, because the chances of Inter keeping hold of him beyond this season are incredibly slim.

There really is no reason to be happy tonight.