Inzaghi can tell you that his side has been able to break down every team he faced, except Bayern and was able to put the team in an advantageous position by scoring first(apart from Lazio and Bayern).
If the team’s so called championship defence is literally faltering and are unable to maintain a lead against both top and average opposition, making some ameuter mistakes, then he can say that’s not on me.
Its not like Inzaghi came in and dismantled the defence or changed the system In his second season. The defensive mistakes that we have witnessed this season against Milan, Lazio, Udinese were something else and can’t be blamed on the manager.
Conceding goals like Ikone’s equalizer for example is one of those that you can’t really fault on player or manager. You can argue that team was defensively exposed, but this team has conceded while defending deep as well.
This team has conceded in every manner;
-set-piece defending,
-4cbs playing and 3 WBS(against Barc);
- while defending deep;
- in transition, etc.
There is no method that a manager can impart to exonerate these mistakes. For example Giroud’s goal in the Milan derby was defensive exposure? There was 11 men behind the ball. Or Lewadonski 1st goal from De Vrij’s failed clearance, the same De Vrij who the week before was so good.
You want to blame it all on Inzaghi and say it’s a system issue? I don’t buy it.
Generally speaking, I agree most of it; there are times on the players and there are times on the coach.
Lazio, Udinese and Fiorentina games have gameplay issues (For the Fiorentina one, the players quality actually won the game for us, along with the recent morale and certainty of the play, despite it was not exactly the right one IMHO)
Ikone’s equalizer on the contrary an example of a tactical decision led to a player's "brilliancy" play or a player's fault (Not all are due to tactical error though), but in short 3-5-2 facing a 4-3-3, especially the Fiorentina's wingers are this fast pace and shift of a CB & Dimarco pressing up, plus Dimarco pairing up with Acerbi, this was meant to happen and also what Fiorentina was hoping for. The goal happened when Dimarco was ahead of the other midfields, who should be the one harassing Kouamé when he was about to make that long pass, instead they set up a screen to block off the pass to Jovic, and Cabral drag Skrinar away from the back, but then Acerbi and De Vrij are stretched thin in the back and is inevitably isolated off into a 1 on 1 situation. This could've been prevented if Dimarco was instructed to be more conservative on the forward run and how far, but obviously this was a compromised on the defense for the attack play.
In a traditional old fashion sense, coaches do like to create these 1 on 1 plays for wingers to take on their man, as you see Jovic did drop back a bit to make the midfielders have a harder time to decide to press up on Kouamé right away, as there is a man in their zonal area.
However, there are games where Inzaghi plays it safe, like the first match against Pizen and last year against Sheriff, you see the positions are more to secure the space that could lead to a counterattack, but he only does it when he is not too worried about the scoring chances.
To prevent this, we need higher quality players, and that is budget thing, imagine if we have a young
Kanté in the middle or it was Bastoni against Ikone.
Also like I said before I think the team found themselves since the Roma game, and everything did carry on from there.
Hope Lukaku will bring in some stability in scoring against weaker teams in Serie A.
Anyway, I think we should be happy that we have him as a coach.