Inter Milan Season Unravelling As Roma Defeat Hands Napoli Advantage

Inter Milan’s season is beginning to unravel inside a week, following a 1-0 defeat at home to AS Roma.

An early going from Matias Soule secured a massive three points for Roma and helped the Giallorossi’s chances of making the Champions League for the first time in six years, while putting a massive dent in Inter’s title aspirations.

It’s been a horrible week for Inter boss Simone Inzaghi. A shock 1-0 defeat to Bologna was followed by a crushing 3-0 defeat to city beighbours Milan in the Coppa Italia semi final second leg.

The tie was 1-1 from the first leg, but two goals from Luka Jovic and one from Tijani Reijnders secured Milan’s victory and a showpiece meeting with Bologna.

Then came the loss to Roma and, combined with Napoli’s victory against later Torino in the evening, means the 20-time champions are three points behind Napoli with only four games left.

Moreover, looking at the title run-in, Napoli have — on paper at least — the easier set of fixtures, with games against Lecce, Genoa, Parma and Cagliari.

Inter, meanwhile, have tricky games against Verona, Torino, Lazio and Como, as well as the two mammoth games against Barcelona in the Champions League semi final, to come in the next few weeks.

Inzaghi’s men appear to be running out of gas at just the wrong time in the season, and there is the distinct possibility that Inter could go from winning a potential treble to ending the season empty-handed.

Asked about Inter’s current slump in form, Inzaghi tried not to get negative about the situation: “This is football, it’s been three defeats in a row, but the team always tried,” he said.

Now we have to react. Throw-ins, penalties, absences, schedule, it’s a bit of a tough time for us, but there’s no point talking about it.”

Despite possessing the most in-depth squad in the league, the rigours of the season are clearly getting to Inter’s players. The Nerazzurri have the oldest squad in Serie A, and indeed one of the oldest in Europe, and this is playing a role in their downturn in results.

Inter have played some 52 games to this point, that’s a lot of minutes in the legs for the likes of Nicolo Barella, Lautaro Martinez, Federico Dimarco and Hakan Calhanoglu, who’ve all played over 40 games each this season.

In the week from hell, they’ve also failed to find the back of the net even once. The goals have dried up for Lautaro Martinez since the draw against Bayern in early April, while Marcus Thuram’s injury has been felt.

The Frenchman is also going through something of a dry spell. Despite performing in tandem with Martinez, Thuram has only scored twice in Serie A this calendar year, and Inzaghi’s reserves, Mehdi Taremi and Mirko Arnautovic, have failed to ease the burden on the two starters, with only five league goals between them all season.

Next up for Inter is the first leg against Barcelona in Spain, with memories of the epic 2010 meeting between the two at the same stage flooding back for many. A potential fourth European crown would offset any lost Scudetto, but with their current form they’ll need a lot of help, and some luck, to beat Hansi Flick’s Barcelona.

Inter fans will be hoping Inzaghi can channel some of his inner Jose Mourinho and ressurect the spirit of 15 years ago.