Leading the pack early in the season, Roberto Mancini’s side once looked the goods. Yet after winning just once in their last seven league outings prior to the weekend’s victory over struggling Sampdoria, the Milanese side is in danger of a harsh fall down the table.
It is no secret that Inter Milan are enduring a mini-crisis of sorts at the San Siro.
A club that boasted the league’s tightest defence not too long ago and held a 100% record for the first five matches of 2015-16, the Nerazzurri are now languishing in fifth and were just two points above eternal rivals AC Milan, who themselves have had their fair share of issues on and off the pitch, prior to the past weekend’s Serie A fixtures.
The side is not as imposing and fearsome as it once was, no longer decisively picking up points and closing out games in the same efficient manner as the early campaign.
Mancini appears to have lost the dressing room to a certain extent, and the coach still seems to have not settled on his best starting XI lineup. Some new signings have also failed to make a mark in Italian football and have struggled for form in the Inter Milan setup, impacting how the team has gelled on the pitch.
An inability to create has been the side’s major flaw, though now that defensive stability has diminished somewhat, Inter are no longer feared and have suffered a monumental loss of form and confidence as a result.
With that being said, it is these three factors that have been key in perpetuating the Nerazzurri’s misfortunes.
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The 4-1 thumping at the San Siro to the hands of Paulo Sousa’s men was the day it all came crashing down for Inter.
Riding high on their five straight victories in the league, Mancini’s side went in with a confident mood, even if it was against an attacking and free-flowing Fiorentina.
Tactically, Internazionale were outfoxed, and the entirety of the 90 minutes served as a reality check to show Mancini and his charges that they could not truly think to challenge for the Scudetto if they were to keep performing in this manner.
This match rocked the side’s confidence like nothing else has this season, with Inter going a whole month without a Serie A victory in the aftermath. There have been showings along the way from then to now that may suggest the result is truly behind them, though the performances in general since then have been increasingly cautious and contained.
As well as this, Sousa showed the rest of Serie A the blueprint on how to get the best of Inter and its stringent defence. A high-pressing game was employed by the former Basel manager, with centre-backs João Miranda and Jeison Murillo not being given much time to breathe, as errors in that area of the pitch were forced and Inter not allowed to control the game as a result.
Other sides to use this tactic against Mancini’s men have usually been successful, with Sassuolo a prime example of this as they won 1-0 at the San Siro just after the turn of the year.
9 – AC Milan have picked 15 points over the last 7 match-days, 9 more than Inter Milan. Comeback.
— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) February 15, 2016
Mancini has lost the dressing room
Publicly shaming his players and leaving important ones on the bench in times of need has not served the former Manchester City boss too well in an attempted ploy to rally his talent and drive an increased amount of determination. Instead, it has done a fair amount of damage to the dressing room and has caused some to fall-out with the 51-year-old.
Mauro Icardi is one such example of this. Last season’s joint-top-goalscorer in the league has still had an extremely productive one this time around, even with Inter struggling to create chances and provide service. However, Mancini has still managed to come to a major disagreement with the man he appointed as the club’s captain prior to the opening of the season, and the tension is such between the pair that it is rumoured Icardi does not wish to hang around the San Siro next season if the Italian is still in charge.
He is not the only one. Stevan Jovetic, who began the season on fire, is another who has been ridiculed by Mancini in the media, and is even now serving time on the bench, with fleeting appearances as a substitute the only minutes the Montenegrin has received as of late.
The times that the 51-year-old has unfairly criticised one of his players in public and has discarded one of his main men from the starting lineup for little to no apparent reason have just seemingly driven himself further away from the dressing room.
Not a stranger to falling out with his players, as shown during his time in the blue half of Manchester, it appears Mancini has a task on his hands in a bid to get his players back onside and get the best out of them once more.
Tactical inconsistencies doing more harm than good
When Inter were on a roll in the first-half of the season, many were praising Mancini for his tactical flexibility, however, the constant chopping and changing to not only formations but personnel in each and every game has now taken its toll on the team.
At this stage, with every coach now knowing his best starting XI and the formation that suits the side best, Mancini is still unsure on both of these it seems, with this translating into the side’s play.
Consistency is one of the key components to success, Inter did not have tactical consistency at the start of the season and got by just fine, though it was inevitable for this to become a telling factor in the side’s potential (and now real) downfall.
Such was the chronic nature of Mancini’s tactical switches, that it took until January 10th at home to Sassuolo for Inter’s boss to name the same team twice in succession in the league, even if the match was just three days after their victory away to Empoli. At first it kept many of the players on their toes, yet after a time it just demotivated those who were in one week and out the next, with the others who remained in the starting lineup not gaining much of a clue of who they will be playing alongside.
By stark contrast, Siniša Mihajlovic over at AC Milan has fielded much of the same team for some time in the same 4-4-2 formation. They have experienced a sudden resurgence and climb up the table.
In order to get back to winning ways and on a regular basis, Mancini must address these issues, or else he may face the reality of finishing outside of the Europa League places if the worst was to happen.
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