Inter lost to Juventus 2-1 at home on Saturday and are now in 16th place in Serie A after nine games.
Mirko Vucinic opened the scoring after 12 minutes, with Maicon grabbing an equaliser just before the half hour mark. But Claudio Marchisio popped up almost immediately to score what would prove to be the winner for the visitors.
This was a match that Inter should have won, that an Inter side or two or three years ago would have won. But this Inter is weak defensively and lacks a clinical touch in front of goal.
Case in point is the first goal of the match. Nagatomo was too slow to close down Lichtsteiner and his cross was met by Matri. Castellazzi made a great save but Vucinic was first to react and smash in the rebound. But it was Nagatomo’s poor positional play and lack of hustle that allowed Lichtsteiner all the time in the world to pick out Matri with his cross.
Juvetus’s second goal was just as bad. A simple one-two between Marchisio and Matri carved open the Inter defence and Marchision placed his shot into the corner beyond Castellazzi. This is not the Inter defence of Jose Mourinho. Whether it is age, formation or injuries I don’t know, but Inter are a shadow of the team defensively that won the Champions League 18 months ago.
Make no mistake, Juventus were very beatable today. But the Inter midfield struggled to maintain any sort of grip on the game. I tweeted this during the match, but what has happened to Wesley Sneijder? Since the World Cup Finals in 2010, he has not been the same player, and he was really poor today.
Upfront, Inter really paid the price for the injuries to Milito and Forlan and the sale of Eto’o. I like Pazzini, but lets face it, he is Inter’s third best striker and he lacks the clinical touch in front of goal that Milito and Forlan possess (and Eto’o possessed).
With the lose Inter are now 11 points behind Juventus in the title race and the odds of Inter catching the leaders is very slim. More importantly, Inter are 7 points behind Udinese for that all important Champions League place. So with the title gone, what does Ranieri and Moratti do? Do they keep doing what they are doing or do they admit the title race is over and speed up the integration of Inter’s young stars into the speed so that next season a younger, more athletic Inter side can challenge for trophies ago?
What did you think of the Juventus match?
