It’s pretty clear that this team is lacking a protagonist. This whole team gives off big supporting actor energy, we’re like a great band with no lead singer. Our movie is lacking a main character. Say what you want about Lukaku but he was that guy for us.
This is unfortunately what happens when you sell your only natural goal scorer. Remember how the complaint about Lukaku was that he didn’t score enough “decisive” goals. Well how many of those non-decisive goals could we have used this year when we were up 1-0? We can’t kill games.
That’s obviously not on Inzaghi, however he’s not free from criticism either. We did have our chance to win this game. However when we were in the ascendency we needed to put our foot on their throat with a Sanchez or Correa sub. Instead we held constant and only brought subs due to injury until it was too late for the subs to make an impact and we had lost control of the game.
That tells me that Inzaghi did not want to lose this match more then he wanted to win this match. Time will tell if that was the right choice. We are better then Milan, and perhaps we’ll catch up. I can understand the fear of going 10 points behind this early, however I don’t think that’s the mentality that’s going to win us another scudetto.
This team seems like they’re back to where we were in the first year with Conte. I don’t get the vibe we are the reigning Serie A champs. We are back to being flat track bullies that struggle in the big matches. The added benefit now is we play a little bit better as a team and our CL group is easier because of our seeding.
Mentally we’re weaker then last year, we’re less fit then last year, and our personnel in 3 key positions is markedly worse. When we adequately replace Hakimi, Lukaku and Eriksen then we can talk. Those are 3 players that on their day are world class. Until we replace what we’ve lost this is our new normal.