COMMENT: The Nerazzurri crumbled at the back against
Cagliari to show the rest of Serie A that their defensive failures are
numerous and entirely exploitable
It had all the hallmarks of a simple home win, but Inter’s 4-1 shellacking by Cagliari at San Siro underlined the Nerazzurri’s previously semi-hidden defensive problems.
Despite conceding just one goal in seven competitive fixtures in 2014-15, Walter Mazzarri’s men had hinted to having issues in the build-up to Sunday’s clash with Zdenek Zeman’s bottom-of-the-table side.
Errors by Nemanja Vidic in away trips to Torino and Palermo had left Inter scrambling for a point on each occasion, while signs of miscommunication between the defensive line and the midfield shield had suggested that the statistics were covering up a concern of things to come.
Last season the Inter defence performed infinitely better than under Andrea Stramaccioni twelve months previously. Thirty-nine league goals were conceded compared to 57 under the now-Udinese boss, leaving many to suggest that Mazzarri had found a permanent solution to their issues at the back.
But if the action itself hadn’t already suggested that there may be frailties concealed behind the figures, Cagliari’s first-half performance picked at plenty of holes in the Inter backline and left Mazzarri absolutely clueless as to how to patch up the leaks.
The home side fell behind less than 10 minutes in, and Vidic was again at fault. The Serb misread a long ball and drifted out of position towards a collision he had no right to be part of, leaving Marco Sau free to latch onto the loose ball which followed and fire past Samir Handanovic.
Inter hit back when Rodrigo Palacio caught Cagliari cold with the quickest of free-kicks, playing in Pablo Daniel Osvaldo for a simple side-foot finish after Alessio Cragno’s half-hearted attempt to make things difficult for the Italo-Argentine.
It should have been the goal which brought an even keel to proceedings, but the sheer stupidity of Yuto Nagatomo left them chasing the game once more. Just three minutes after a first booking the stand-in skipper went right through the back of Andrea Cossu, inviting referee Luca Banti to send him from the field.
A minute later, Albin Ekdal swept home after Vidic and Gary Medel both failed to react quickly enough to Handanovic’s parry from a Daniele Dessena stinger from distance.
Ibarbo surged past a leaden-footed Dodo, skipped past the challenge and cut back behind two flat-footed Inter defenders for the late-arriving Ekdal to slam home a second. It was exactly the kind of kamikaze defending for which Zeman teams have themselves been ridiculed for many a year.
As cameras cut away to Mazzarri and his assistant Nicolo Frustalupi on the home bench, both men seemed pretty lost for answers.
Things got worse before the two men had an opportunity to rejig things at the break, with Vidic clumsily going to ground and taking Sau with him.
Handanovic strengthened his long-held reputation for penalty saves by keeping out Cossu’s spot-kick, but two quickfire corners later Ekdal was swiping home unmarked with only team-mate Luca Rossettini looking likely to beat him to the ball.
It was as dreadful a goal as had been conceded all afternoon, but for the Swedish man of the hour it was already a career high. Not only was it his first ever hat-trick, he had never so much as racked up two in a season before.
Even a Zeman side couldn’t throw away a three-goal half-time lead when a man up, and Inter never looked likely to cause the visitors too many problems. If anything, they could have fallen further behind, with wayward finishing from the Sardinians typical of a side felling free to attempt barnstormers with a big lead to fall back on.
It is hardly the end of the world for Inter, who remain in fourth place pending Sunday night’s Genoa derby. But it does show that they are still a long way behind the leading lights of Juventus and Roma.
Mazzarri claimed afterwards that he had made mistakes in his team selection, but it was the collective failure as a defensive unit that was to blame.
"I thought the team was in great shape this week and didn’t pay enough attention to the fitness levels, so I played some players who were on their third or fourth games in a row and that showed," he claimed, failing to raise the point that seven of Cagliari's starters had played three times in a week too.
They lacked no single individuals but rather the organisation and structure of a team that knows what it is doing.
While the top two remain among the most frugal outfits in Europe, the Nerazzurri’s trend of giving out gifts continues. It is the main reason they are rightly placed within the chasing pack instead of being considered as clear favourites for the final Champions League spot.
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