Not the prettiest of performances but Inter have put another giant step forward in securing a top 4 spot after the victory over Udinese.
A first half which had “Pazza Inter” written all over it, but the class of certain individuals was enough to get us home in the end.
We need to give credit to Inzaghi as all his substitutions were spot on. Usually, we see subs break our momentum but this was the complete opposite today. All players who came on changed the game in our favour.
Let’s look further into the match itself.
Man of the match –
A player who was everywhere tonight and really saved us – Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
His superb finish from the Dimarco cross was absolutely world class. Those are the hardest shots when the ball is running across your body, but Mkhitaryan hit it so sweet that Silvestri stood no chance.
We were lucky in that scenario as Udinese bombed a 4v2 moments earlier, then we countered and ended up with the finish above just described for a 2-1 lead.
Throughout the match, there were a couple of opportunities where Mkhitaryan found himself being in a key defensive position and his clearances were crucial.
An example was an Udinese attack on the left where a through ball was slipped into the box. Luckily for Inter, the Armenian was positioned perfectly for a slide tackle and cleared the ball from danger.
It’s crazy that the combination of Henrikh and Hakan is now more important than Hakan and Brozovic. I definitely couldn’t have predicted that at the start of the season. Not sure what has happened to Brozovic but that’s a conversation for another time.
Handanovic?
This was the only decision I questioned before kick off. Don’t know why Inzaghi chose to start Handanovic over Onana.
Especially since keepers don’t need to be rotated for rest unlike outfield players. So I’m not sure if this is a send off for Handanovic, since he was an Udinese player for so long and this is most likely his last wish as an Inter player.
I think it points to Handanovic not being with Inter next season so this is kind of like a farewell. It’s just a theory and I’m definitely clutching at straws for this decision to make sense.
If the above theory does not check out, then I have no idea why Onana didn’t start.
As a keeper it doesn’t matter if there is three days or three hours between games. It’s more mentally exhausting than it is physically exhausting. We will see in the midweek Porto fixture what happens as I definitely expect Onana to start.
There shouldn’t be anymore rotations as Onana has been fantastic since taking over from Handanovic with the full time role.
Where to next?
The Champions League is back and I’m definitely so excited for this fixture. We face Porto at home for the first leg and it’s 10000% a match we need to win.
Porto are on some crazy run at the moment where they are unbeaten in all competitions since their loss at home to Benfica back in October last year. This will be a tough match, but we need to put faith in Inzaghi to get the team ready.
Prediction: Inter 2-1
As always, Forza Inter!
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