5 takeaways: Inter Milan vs Torino

Inter Milan were hard done by Torino last night after losing a two-goal lead to finish with a draw. This leaves Inter with just one point from their first two games when they probabaly should have had five more, however, there is no need to panic just yet.

After the culmination of the 2017-18 season, one of the criticisms I had of Luciano Spalletti was his rigidity. For large tracts of the season, the formation and ideology remained the same, with a few experiments in between. So it was a welcome surprise for me to see Spalletti try out a 3 at the back. Whether this was a bold statement by Spalletti or just a necessity out of the available options, most of the conclusions I drew from this game were from the formation that Spalletti chose to deploy.

Asamoah and Vrsaljko looked great

I was probably the only member of the Serpents team who had an issue with the signing of Šime Vrsaljko, the reason for that being I felt that Vrsaljko would not be able to contribute much on the offensive end. But I will take that back if Spalletti decides to continue with this formation. I’m saying this now, Kwadwo Asamoah and Vrsaljko are good full-backs, but are great wing-backs. They both possess incredible work-rates and are immensely beneficial if we continue to play with a formation that depend on wing-backs for providing width. They both looked great in this game, and we can only expect better performances in the future.

Politano given freedom in the final third

Matteo Politano was handed a free-role and he put in an incredible shift, it seemed as if Politano was unshackled and was doing everything perfectly. Either one of Vrsaljko or Asamoah were caught up in defence and you needed someone to provide width? Need a pin-point ball from a set-piece? Need somebody to link play between the double pivot and Icardi? Need someone to defend the flank incase Torino doubles up? If you had any of those questions against Torino, Politano was your answer. He was the MOTM for me.

Photo by Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images

Milan Skriniar uncomfortable

I felt Milan Skriniar looked really uncomfortable playing as a left-center back, Milan is unable to play those cross-court diagonals and line breaking passes with his left-foot and if he tries to switch to his right foot, it takes up too much time and Torino can plug the gaps. Milan was such an integral part of our buildup last season and that was due to him being the right sided centre-half. Maybe Spalletti should ponder about this for the upcoming match.

Vecino should not play as a part of the double pivot

Marcelo Brozović and Matías Vecino were part of the double pivot , this meant that once Walter Mazzarri made some tweaks in the second half, the duo got overrun in midfield and spent most of their time defending , it didn’t help that Spalletti was too conservative and too late with his changes. With Brozovic spending most of his effort on the defensive side of things, we lost our ace midfield controller and Torino got a firm hold on the game. If Spalletti wishes to continue with this formation, he must partner Brozovic with Radja Nainggolan or even Roberto Gagliardini, simply because starting Vecino holds back Brozovic and the entire team along with him.

Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

Torino’s questionable tactics

Despite playing similar formations in the first half, Politano and Perisic were afforded a whole lot of space in the final third. Why Mazzari is asking the Torino players to mark set pieces in a zonal manner when his players are clearly not used to it is beyond me. De Vrij capitalised on this and we could have attacked Torino through crosses and set-pieces. If not for Andrea Bellotti’s superb first touch, Torino may have never got their first goal. The reason I’m not happy with Inter’s performance is because we were playing a team that had an even worse performance. But despite all these negative points, there were positives as well and I urge every Inter fan not to panic yet and trust the team and the management.

Forza Inter!

What do you think? Post your comments below!