Inter Milan vs Sampdoria: Match Preview

Inter avoided a potential banana peel against Viktoria Plzen with a dominant 4-0 midweek win but now comes another very winnable game on paper that might prove to be a little more when Sampdoria comes to town Saturday evening.

Photo by Alessio Tarpini/LiveMedia/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A certain Dejan Stankovic is at the helm for the Blucherati after Marco Giampaolo’s sacking in early October. Sampdoria had 7 losses and a pair of draws (against Juventus and Lazio no less) under Giampaolo, but the final straw was a 3-0 home defeat to Monza on October 2nd. Since Stankovic’s arrival, Sampdoria has managed one win, one draw, and one loss, and moved from rock bottom up to 18th on 6 points from 11 games. Sampdoria’s attack is the league’s worst with a mere six goals scored. Filip Djuric leads the goalscoring charts with two tallies while veteran strikers Francesco Caputo and Manolo Gabbiadini have one each. Things don’t get much better in defense either, where Samp has conceded the 5th most (18). In short, this is one bad football team.

But if there’s one thing Sampdoria is good at, it’s keeping games close against the big teams of the peninsula. It fought to 0-0 and 1-1 draws against Juve and Lazio respectively and though it fell to Milan and Roma, the scorelines read 2-1 and 1-0. Interestingly, Sampdoria didn’t just rely on a bunker defense (though there was no shortage of it) and even dominated possession against Milan and Roma. On both occasions, however, there was an absence of any sort of creativity and quality in the final third and even Stankovic’s arrival on the touchline hasn’t shown any signs of solving Samp’s goalscoring woes. Sampdoria has scored twice in the Serbian’s three games in charge, playing out of a very structured 4-2-3-1 shape.

Previous Results

Inter has a 76W-43D-24L all-time record against the Blucherati, last losing all the way back in April 2017.

• 3-0 (H), 22/5/22
• 2-2 (A), 12/9/21

Predicted Starting XIs

Prediction: Inter Milan 3-0 Sampdoria

The Nerazzurri will make a good week even better with another high-scoring victory, highlighted by a Correa brace and a Lautaro strike.

Forza Inter!