Inter - Sassuolo (7 Apr 21) [2-1]

Broseph Stalin said:

Just one question to Eriksen fans - what has been this guy doing for 60 minutes tonight? I genuinely want to know

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What fkn Gags did, what Sensi did... Best fantasista in the world would be bad playing this system. Guy is lost in this shit. This is football for woodsmen not footballers.

Broseph Stalin said:

Just one question to Eriksen fans - what has been this guy doing for 60 minutes tonight? I genuinely want to know

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Waiting for Gagliardini and Young to move. Eriksen fans

Broseph Stalin said:

Just one question to Eriksen fans - what has this guy been doing for 60 minutes tonight? I genuinely want to know

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Yep, we almost lost because of him...oh wait we won despite having only 33% of the possession. Obviously it's his fault.

Actually for me 5G and Young had a decent game for their average standards. Eriksen was ok for me as registra. He had some nice forward passes and protected well the space behind him. Barella and Hakimi were the guys to blame as they were really bad in counter attacking today. Impressed by Darmian, i didn't expect him to be so composed as LCB. Lukaku was just great. Goal, assist, three huge clearances on set pieces and created few good chances for his teammates. Good job by Lautaro too, his finishing was nice.

To everybody saying we were shit, you'd rather we played like Sassuolo? Having 99% of the possession and only one shot on goal? To me it seems like we executed our gameplan to perfection.

cuba gooding said:

Hmm, imagine triangle of Young, Gags, and Darmian. The left side would provide nothing in terms of attack and might be a risk in defense.

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See, that triangle wasn't as bad. Specially Darmian and Young were pretty decent.

But I will be glad to see Brozo back for the next game. We missed his industry today. He is really under-appreciated around here. Hopefully Vidal will be fit to take Barella's place.

brightbackground said:

To everybody saying we were shit, you'd rather we played like Sassuolo? Having 99% of the possession and only one shot on goal? To me it seems like we executed our gameplan to perfection.

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We have better personnel than Sassuolo to oversee a more possession-based football. We don't have to defend that much.

Sassuolo are a tricky opponent so I'm very happy with this result. I would like to see us play more offensive against Cagliari.

Well i dont think we should get angry by this display of football in this stage of the seasson(i will still get angry next game), at this point we just need take the points and run..
Even if we throw up a little inside us, after so many years, its worth..

Broseph Stalin said:

Just one question to Eriksen fans - what has this guy been doing for 60 minutes tonight? I genuinely want to know

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He is playing a role that he hasn't done in his entire life and yet in every single game that he plays I have more confidence in midfield. Imagine to put Gagliardini and Brozovic in midfield ... the whole team becomes automatically slow.

It’s clear as day that our whole game plan revolves around sitting very deep and soaking up pressure and then when we get the ball back, hoofing the ball up to somewhere near Lukaku in space and utilizing his speed. It’s working for now because our defense and GK are elite and Rom is in a very rich vein of form.

I can’t blame Eriksen for mostly forgettable performances. He’s being asked to play safe as a DM more or less.

Allow me to repost a bit early!

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Choppin Onions said:

It’s clear as day that our whole game plan revolves around sitting very deep and soaking up pressure and then when we get the ball back, hoofing the ball up to somewhere near Lukaku in space and utilizing his speed. It’s working for now because our defense and GK are elite and Rom is in a very rich vein of form.

I can’t blame Eriksen for mostly forgettable performances. He’s being asked to play safe as a DM more or less.

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What is clear as day is that we are quiet offensively driven until the moment we get the first goal. From then on, what you have described happens. We do not see the urgency to push further when getting the first goal, as we know that we will eventually outsmart (counterattack) our opposition.

Vecino’s immediate effect has been visible... in a negative way. Did you guys notice the wholes in our midfield right after he came on? Sassuolo were attacking freely through the middle where Vecino was nowhere to be found.

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bubba zanetti said:

I will be very happy if we win scudetto but this kind of football that we are playing is disgusting, even Mourinho's football looks ultraofensive compared to this. Hope Bbilan, Rube stay also shit till the end of season.

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I dont like Conte, but Mourinho’s football is worse and even more defensive.

Am I the only one who thought we did really good this game compared to the last one?

I think the reason why we are being so defensive is because of our desire to win the league. I think conte is trying to maintain our lead in the league and reduce the risk of collapsing, this is why we are this. Like someone said, our defensiveness starts immediately we take the lead in a match. Concentration is the greatest key to winning a long of run matches and winning the league and by our level of maturity, we lack that concentration to play attacking football continuously, it generally takes a lot of time in growth to be winning a long run of matches playing attacking football than defensively. After all this is just the 2nd year with conte. Besides, conte was not playing defensive football since he came up until we took the lead in the table, we were the 2nd best scorers in the league last season and the best this season up until this run of defensive football.
If you guys remember correctly, one of our main problems last season and the beginning of this season was that we blew away a lot of clear cut chances in almost every match. Given this problem, if to win the league is the main objective, then one shouldn't play a more attacking football, logically. cuz we will end up drawing and losing matches while biting our fingers. If I am correct, maybe this is the reason why conte reverted to this kind of football, "achieve the lead first then defend it". And in my own view any sensible person or coach should do the same given that winning the league is the only way to save oneself after losing the coppa and ucl group stages. However this should be a short-term approach just to winning the league this year and I hope that conte thinks the same and will revert to his initial system, but if otherwise, I.e if he sees it as our main tactics and permanent solution then we won't get anywhere in the league next season let alone in European competition, coz very soon even teams in serie a will realise our single-dimensional game and it will be easy to counter it.

I don’t think the problem lies dichotomically whether we play offensively and defensively. Don’t get me wrong, I praise our gameplan last night both defensively and offensively especially in terms of effectiveness. What becomes the problem to me is that the players seem still often do some wrong passings and fatal error in the defense that could jeopardize our stability in game. Those things, however, need improving and evaluation.

Nevertheless, let’s enjoy the tripunti that we get.

Candreva Crosses said:

Am I the only one who thought we did really good this game compared to the last one?

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I think we did better but our game against Sassuolo was by no means easy to watch. I think our goals were beautiful but do not have much else to add.

I have read through comments on various threads on here and I am quite surprised. A few posters suggested getting rid of Conte at the end of the season. Others complained that we do not play beautiful or attractive attacking football and one poster even said that Spalletti played attacking football (which I found astounding. I am still trying to work out if Spalletti himself logged on to make that post).

I really cannot be fucked responding to those posts when I woke up at 2:15am to watch the game. All I can really say to those posters is that Inter has never been about playing beautiful football. If you want that, fuck off and follow Barcelona or some other cunt fanboy team.

I am happy with the three points. Nothing else matters.

Broseph Stalin said:

Just one question to Eriksen fans - what has this guy been doing for 60 minutes tonight? I genuinely want to know

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In the extraordinarily rare moments where he actually had runners or passes to pick out, he made some good, quick forward passes, which is exactly what Conte wants - rapid, direct, vertical transition from defense to the forwards. Otherwise, he maintained his positional discipline very well and did a good job of screening and hustling.

Once again, the "not Eriksen fans" need to actually pay attention to what he's been asked to do and what he's actually in a position to do. Hakimi for example was in a position get forward, to assist and score but he failed on both counts, therefore his rating suffers. What was Eriksen in a position to do? Two things: defend, and stay deep to play the ball out from the back.

I dislike this narrative to make him look like he's a negative contributor because he's not making fantastic attacking plays all game like De Bruyne. He is not, and will never be, in a position to do so in this team. As Cafe frequently says, there is definitely a debate to be had about maximization of resources, but that's another topic all together.

Eriksen was, yet again, completely fine. 6/10.

While I'm on ratings, just a few notes:

• Young was surprisingly excellent. Very solid and positionally aware in defense. Also should've had two assists putting two great crosses right on Lukaku and Hakimi's heads. MOTM behind Lukaku IMO.
  
  
• Speaking of Lukaku, once again he showed a tendency to lack awareness of his surroundings. A handful of times he had the ball in good attacking positions, but was clueless to being closed down and lost the ball cheaply. Despite that, he did well to score, assist and make plays late into the second half which really should've been better executed by Hakimi and Sanchez. I disagree with brehme on plenty of things but he's always been 100% correct when he says Lukaku is a volume striker.
  
  
• Another somewhat subpar game from Barella, at least offensively speaking. Defensively did well, minus that stupid yellow, and worked his ass off as always. All in all, it's probably not bad that he'll be suspended against Cagliari while Brozovic returns from a rest.
  
  
• I thought Sensi had a great little cameo. Was much more dynamic and involved than Eriksen and switched positions constantly with Barella. Wasn't afraid to get into challenges and won plenty of tackles too. That said, while he deserves a lot of credit, the game had opened up a lot more by the time he came on which allowed him to make better use of his skils - a luxury Eriksen didn't have.
  
  
• Finally Hakimi.. Where to begin? Another very poor game, missed a sitter, poor delivery and decision making, gave away the ball for the Sassuolo goal. Disastrous tbh. Not much more needs to be said on that.
  
  I think his confidence issues started with Lukaku going ballistic and screaming at him every game - even when it was his own fucking fault While Lukaku hasn't done it as much in recent games, the damage seems to have been done. I felt at some point, maybe since the Fiorentina game, that Hakimi just seemed noticably hesitant. Instead of playing on instinct and doing what occurred naturally to him, I feel like you could see him trying to force the issue, attempting to pick out a teammate - even when it wasn't the best option (then failing, and getting screamed at).
  
  I like to think that he'll get over it and back into his regular groove. I certainly wouldn't bench him for the mistake today or for the stretch of bad games. He just needs a goal or a good assist to unlock things.

Anyway, the last 10 minutes of that game were just sheer fucking torture. We need to improve our general playing style to be more dominant. Every team, every championship winning team no less, will have a share of filthy games grinding out results. I daresay we've done it a bit too much recently, and against opposition which we could've beat by playing more assertively.

Thankfully, this upcoming match against Cagliari is a great opportunity to do just that and rediscover some style. I wouldn't be upset with another shithousing win, but come on. They are fucking 18th place for a reason and we are playing at home on the championship stretch. I want to pump these fuckers.

Next day! How are we feeling at +11? If you haven't voted yet in the player ratings, please consider doing so! Results likely up tomorrow.

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