Simone Inzaghi

[Il Drago]

He changed the game with his subs in a good way this time. Kudos to Simone. More of that please.

 

[dragondance]

Can we blame both? Inzaghi is significantly worse than Conte. No argument here.

Don't think the result is good enough. We have faced only two good teams so far (Atalanta, Real), and got 1 point out of 6. Both matches were at our home.

The bold part...well, freaking Pioli is doing better with Milan with a worse squad. And they had a much harder schedule. I know, this is Inzaghi first season but he has done nothing to prove the doubters wrong.

Pioli did much better than Conte until the second half of the last season. Conte did very well for half a season and that’s all. Before that, his team is average at best, very inconsistent, I guess some of you choose to remember only the good part.

Real is a better team than us, our loss is not a surprise by any mean, Conte lost twice last season, and the performances were atrocious. We were unlucky this time, the performance was much better. A draw with Atalanta is not that bad as you make it seem like.
I can’t remember all our CL games last season, but I still remember the game against Real when we played like kids, couldn’t even advance the ball, one of our worse performances EVER. Then another bad game against Shakhtar.
Can i say Inzaghi is as good as or better than Conte? absolutely no, at least for now, but I will give him time. You are too soon to write him off, and he is at clear disadvantage compared to Conte. No big coach would want to manage this weakening Inter when the owner has financial problem, best players are sold, especially right after a successful season. Inzaghi is as good as we can get in this situation IMO, he’s done alright so far and we should give him time before judging.

I don’t believe Conte can win Scudetto with this squad. So why expect Inzaghi to do that? If he can, that would be a much bigger achievement than Conte’s Scudetto but I wouldn’t consider him a failure if he won’t. 2nd or 3rd place is acceptable. In CL, I really don’t expect too much, just care about the performances because we have no chance to go far with this squad. I want us to concentrate on Serie A because we don’t have squad depth to compete in 3 competitions.

 

[CafeCordoba]

He changed the game with his subs in a good way this time. Kudos to Simone. More of that please.

Yeah more that when we are losing but preferably don't get to a losing position at the first place.

It will take time to get the team play more fluidly but Inzaghi needs to stop this gung-ho football. We aren't getting a proper return for the investment in throwing multiple players to our attacks constantly. We lose ball when attacking SO EASILY and then it's furious running back to our goal. Problem is also we aren't prepared to lose the ball. It comes as a surprise to most of our players which also causes problems.

This playstyle will drain us eventually because so many players need to run up and down the pitch so much. We need to learn to be more secure with the ball and players need to start making better decisions with the ball by not constantly turning it over in the attack. Or then we need to switch to a more defending module and figure out how our attacking could work (without Lukaku).

 

[Demenza Senile]

Man his 4 subs remind me of De Boer's Triple change against Catania away.And tbh our performances against Viola,Atalanta and Sass also reminds me of that Pazza time.No cohesion in midfield and defense at all.

 

[Sawyer]

Round of applause from me for this man. That is all.

 

[rfU]

Problem is also we aren't prepared to lose the ball.

This. From what I can tell we have a huge "transition from offense to defense" problem. Whenever we lose possession the 2/3 players closest to the ball should quickly press the ball carrier, while the remaining players get into covering positions. We don't do this at all, we don't play as a unit and we lack organization, leaving gaps all over the place. We also lack quality. Guardiola could coach this kind of system into this brainless group. Not sure where Simone goes from here.

 

[thatdude]

After the first 15 min we looked dreadful until the subs. Despite having decent results on the road we have looked god awful in every away match. Dominated for large spells against Fiorentina, Shahktar, and Sassuolo. Hellas I wouldn’t say we were dominated but another match we made tough by having to come from behind. I guess the good thing is you could say the boys have some spirit? At least in Serie A. Let’s not talk about the mental barrier we are facing in CL.

The performances are worrying though. We can’t play like this all year, and if we do we will finish 3rd or 4th in the league, and that’s only because we have enough quality off the bench to turn a game like we did today. We haven’t played a big team away yet but I’m concerned what that’s going to look like, especially when we haven’t won either at home.

Midfield is disjointed, attack lacks a true finisher, defense looks shaky against any type of pace. This isn’t all on Inzaghi, we lost the two fastest players in our team, our 20 goal a season guy, and our best creative midfielder. I think we have to remember just how flawed this team was even under Conte before we added Eriksen and Perisic to the line up and basically played counter attacking football from December through the end of the season. Even last year any time we were missing a starter it was painfully obvious. We had finally gotten to a place where at least our starting XI was great, and now we’re back where we were in 19/20 but without Lukaku. The good news is our players at least have tasted a Scudetto now.

Now for Inzaghi, maybe this Inter looked more talented from the outside idk. However there is a reason this team played in a very particular way last year. Brozo it is not a DM and can’t defend in transition, all of our CBs lack pace. Overall this is a team of good footballers but not great athletes. The way he sets us up leaves us defending one on one way too often. We are always vulnerable to the counter because we commit bodies forward and any wayward pass in midfield is essentially an automatic chance for the other team. Not to mention we also struggle to play out from the back without the release valve of Lukaku.

So what’s the answer? Honestly I’ve been racking my brain and I’m not quite sure. I think we have to go back to playing more conservatively and find a way to utilize Correa’s pace to hurt teams on the counter. Then later in matches we can utilize Dzeko. However the current make up of the squad doesn’t give any easy answers. Maybe Sensi can surpass Hakan in the pecking order and we can get a little more production from the midfield? We all know how much we can trust him to stay fit. I don’t envy Inzaghi he has a lot of expectation and pressure and he has been severely hampered. It’s up to him now hoe to figure out how to get the best out of this team and his requested signing the same way Conte got the most out of his.

 

[Ethor]

Great post.
A pattern is starting to emerge from this year's Inter , despite having spirit and dogged approach especially when the fresh subs come and appears to be unsustainable. Inter's match strategy has worked till now in Serie A, but not in the CL. Granted ,we have missed a large number of shots, some inexplicable others bad luck but the trend is worrisome.
Defensively, we don't seem as solid as last year, part is Inzaghi change in philosophy and player fatigue: CL, international duties, regional tournaments , world cup qualifiers and least we forget the National League. Just about the entire Inter defensive players have the honor of selected by their countries and take part in these aforementioned events.
The midfield suffers from fatigue also and real lack of quality and is not very deep ( no Eriksen or Sensi).
The offense is still developing, but again gassed and or "old", but not very deep either.
No answers from me just observations. Hope management kind find at least some of the answers. Betcha it involves money in the winter window.

 

[CafeCordoba]

Great posts. Our defenders indeed look weak because they indeed don't have pace. We expose them with our system and emphasize their weaknesses. Conte did EXACTLY this same mistake last season. Can't understand why Inzaghi doesn't get it and he needs to do this same mistake.

Constantly losing ball up front is deadly for us as we push WBs very high (obviously), we push two midfielders, sometimes even one of the side CBs. There is no balance at all in our game.

And, it's normal you lose ball up front, there's muchbless your own players there. But we push a lot of players there and we still keep losing balls in similar fashion. Players are simply not skilled enough to consistently keep possession. Sudden lose of ball is like a default outcome for us. That's unacceptable. And will kill us eventually as we can't maintain this running up and down the pitch for the whole season.

 

[varmin]

Great posts. Our defenders indeed look weak because they indeed don't have pace. We expose them with our system and emphasize their weaknesses. Conte did EXACTLY this same mistake last season. Can't understand why Inzaghi doesn't get it and he needs to do this same mistake.

That is why some people here had concerns about before Inzaghi to be hired.
FIFers used to complain about Conte being stubborn, but he was flexible enough to change and fix the things needed to make us more balanced and competitive team. Unfortunately i don't think that Indzaghi is the same kind of person. For me, he has some vision of how his team has to play, and he sticks to it regardless of the obvious flaws. I guess he will try to change something at the moment when the team stalls and starts losing points, but it could be too late.

 

[wera]

We can hype Inzaghi for being more reactive than Conte (and Spalletti). It won't work everytime, but at least he is trying.

But Conte understood this group of players more, as a defensive unit we were amazing last season, especially in the second part of the season. I don't think Inzaghi will change that much.

 

[PHM1605]

Inzaghi hasn't changed his gung-ho style for 5 years, he won't change it here.

If you watch closely at Skriniar position, you would be astonished by the number of times he, side CB but not-too-fast, had to be in 1-on-1 situation. That was Skriniar, strong af, but still, couldn't stop Boga penalizing us. Imagine he is absent and Dumbo there...anyone would rape us like Leao last season.

More horrific, we were leaking goals but the faults weren't on the CBs at all. We were leaking simply because of lack of players. Dumfries was too far upfront and usually, we saw him running all the way back to chase, not to provide defensive space-limiting, as the task of a WB should be. He has no other way but foul to catch up with the winger, like his yellow vs Shaktar.

This system is too risky and not sustainable. We need more gifted players at ball holding (like Correa) to make it works. But less probable as Suning is escaping and won't invest.

 

[rfU]

Our defenders indeed look weak because they indeed don't have pace.

Nor do Bonucci and Chellini

Not the greatest example as Juve did end up losing this one, but point being organization and playing as a unit are key. I have no idea why when Lautoro is pressing, Hakan is standing around doing nothing and DeFry is dropping back, thus creating massive gaps in the team. The point of it all is to squeeze our opponents and restrict the spaces.

We expose them with our system and emphasize their weaknesses. Conte did EXACTLY this same mistake last season. Can't understand why Inzaghi doesn't get it and he needs to do this same mistake.

Trying to get us out of the dark ages. That's how the modern game is played. If we want to be a top team we need to learn these basics. Even ultra defensive Atletico know how to counter press and win the ball back in the opponents half, and in failing, they know how to quickly transition into a defensive shell.

Players are simply not skilled enough to consistently keep possession. Sudden lose of ball is like a default outcome for us.

Agreed. Further drilling is required but I fear we don't have the quality (or depth) to execute.

 

[Bluenine]

That is why some people here had concerns about before Inzaghi to be hired.

Absolutely. These were my concerns when we hired Inzaghi. Lazio had a good starting XI at times, but Inzaghi could never convert some good spells into a season long title challenge. Now it is starting to look like he has converted this Inter into his Lazio. We are entertaining to watch, but don't look like serious scudetto challengers - a top 4 contender at best. My concerns re this Inter winning H2H against top sides still remain.

Maybe Inzaghi will turn this around. But I fear its more likely we will take a turn for the worse than for the better. Next games against Lazio & Juve will be quite revealing. And my concerns on our 2 big transfers (Hakan's quality/consistency and Correa's lack of goals) still remain.

I am willing to bet that despite the poor start, Juventus will finish above us. The main difference is the coach.

 

[qb4ever_2k]

WTF is wrong with people? at this point last year we were worse with Conte despite having a better squad which was tailor crafted to Conte's demands, Conte also had one year head start.

I'm not saying Inzaghi is better than Conte by any means but stop trying to show how wise and right you was about Inzaghi. Because you're not, you are just throwing out your knee jerk reactions and nothing more.

A wise guy would look at the calendar and realize it's October 3rd.

(I'm not talking about those you're analysing our strengths and weaknesses atm, this is to those who pretends they know Inzaghi so well, when they're clearly clueless)

 

[YoramG]

I think we're really suffering opponents' high press due to the lack of a double regista.

Eriksen and Brozovic constantly changed positions last year to break the press and allow us more options while building from the back, but Hakan and Vecino are just AWOL in the building phase. Gags and Vidal likely won't be much better either.

What I did like was seeing us try to find the high ball for Dumfries. Dude is very tall, that's a good out for us.

 

[CafeCordoba]

If Inzaghi won't change the gung-ho style, we need to start buying more skilled players. First we need true offensive playmaker (like Luis Alberto) who can play more up front than in typical regista playmaker area.

Then we need more pacy central CB instead of De Vrij. De Vrij is great in a line which sits lower and he can lead the defence there.

Or then we don't count on Inzaghi anymore. It's either or.

 

[magnesium]

We look lost because one problem.
It's difficult for players to convert from Conte counter-attack tactic to Inzaghi possesion football tactic.
Especially we insert two new players for starters. Maybe three if we count Dumfries.
Some players need adapt at least one month or two month, and thanks to Covid-19 we don't have much game for preseason.

Dumfries and Correa just start few matches. It's easy to say they don't know this team movement.
Even Dumfries don't know how to say Italian correctly.

 

[Batman]

let me disagree on the bold part. Although it was Conte's 2nd season and the team was built based on his visions he still had to make changes since:
- Sensi (i think the name itself is enough)
- New players: Eriksen, Hakimi, Perisic, Kolarov, Vidal

Despite that, Inter played very well, at least we were scoring goals and creating many chances which were not materialized due to pure unluck. We we were winning against Gladbach at home and if it wasn't for Sensi's tackle in the box, things might have developed to a better outcome for us. Same in the match vs Real at Bernabeu, we were doing good, but some individual mistakes led to losing points. What I wanna say is that we didn't look clueless. Conte's football was really enjoyable, players weren't looking shaky and for some reason I never worried about the team performance. With Inzaghi so far I worry a lot about our defense and it also feels like he is not capable of holding the players by their balls if they somehow get complacent one day. Don't get me wrong, I am not criticising Inzaghi. It's his first season, so let's wait, let's see how he handles winter.

I want to add something, I never witnessed an Inter team so comfortable with the ball like Conte’s Inter, not even during Mourinho era. We were great at passing the ball, we were a very tactical team especially in the second half of his second season.

 

[Conan the Barbarian]

If Inzaghi won't change the gung-ho style, we need to start buying more skilled players. First we need true offensive playmaker (like Luis Alberto) who can play more up front than in typical regista playmaker area.

Then we need more pacy central CB instead of De Vrij. De Vrij is great in a line which sits lower and he can lead the defence there.

Or then we don't count on Inzaghi anymore. It's either or.

+1

Inzaghi should give up his meaningless fantasies about Hakan. Hakan will never ever turn into Luis Alberto.