This could be a golden age of Lautaro Martinez, Inter’s spearhead whom other players revolve around. El Toro, a world champion with Argentina in Qatar, has maintained, if not even improved, his high standards in the Nerazzurri shirt to the point of becoming a fundamental and indispensable player, further earning the club’s captaincy amid the imminent birth of his second son Theo.
As the numbers pile up, the striker from Bahia Blanca has finally reached his expected level of maturity and proves he still has ample room for growth. In all competitions to date this season, Lautaro has scored 17 goals and served 7 assists in 35 appearances for his club. Basically, that’s a goal every 163 minutes. Furthermore he adds an enormous amount of work on the offensive front as a whole and if necessary, he’s helping out the defense in his own half of the pitch.
It is no coincidence that when deciding on his starting lineups, Simone Inzaghi limits himself to choosing Martinez’s attacking partner without ever questioning the presence of number 10. And on Friday evening in another delicate must-win match against Spezia, the Argentine is likely to lead the Nerazzurri attack. This is because the Aquilotti are one of his favorite targets in Serie A. That’s 3 goals and 3 assists, or 6 involvements in the attack between the matches played at the Meazza and in Liguria. This isĀ second only to his productivity against Cagliari: 8 goals and an assist in a total of 9 games played. The only precedents that may spoil the high expectations for El Toro are the last away games where Inter did not fare well. His last 3 goals away from Milan were scored in Monza and Cremona (where he had brace).
Aside from occupying second place in the Serie A top scorers list behind Victor Osimhen, Lautaro Martinez has attempted the most shots in this Serie A season (125) – only the Nigerian striker of Napoli is next with 90.