Sampdoria completed a surprising victory over Inter in Milan last night to give Marco Giampaolo a win double over the Nerazzurri this season.

 

It was an awful evening for Stefano Pioli's who lost Italian international Roberto Gagliardini to an ankle injury although he should be back in time to face Milan.

 

With Napoli dropping points to Juventus on Sunday, it presented the perfect opportunity for Inter to make up some precious ground in a tough but definitely winnable match. Pioli had a full strength side available and decided to put the resurgent Kondogbia on the bench, giving his starting role to Marcelo Brozovic and the Croatian didn’t repay the coaches faith at all. Not only was he poor all game, misfiring shots and misplacing passes, but he also ridiculously gave away the match winning penalty, needlessly lashing out his hand to stop ex-inter man Ricky Alvarez’s free kick, drawing many boos from the home crowd. 


 

When Kondogbia did enter the match for the injured Gagliardini at half time, he showed more desire and determination than Brozovic did throughout the whole ninety minutes. Obviously the selection of Brozovic is not the only reason for the defeat and there were some positive moments to Inter's game in the opening half hour that should have been capitalised on. 

However Pioli's team selection and substitutions will definitely come under the microscope. Gary Medel was selected at centre back to partner Miranda but the 5 ft 7 Chilean who’s primary position is defensive midfielder, looked out of sorts as he tried to stop the 6 ft 2 forward Patrik Schick. The big Czech who got the equaliser was too big and strong for Medel every time the two got into a tussle leaving many to feel that Jeison Murillo would have been a better fit for this match.  
 

Pioli was also forced to deny reports of a bust up with Gabriel Barbosa as the young Brazilian was reportedly furious after he wasn’t brought on whilst the match was tied and open for Inter to get the winning the goal. Having arrived for a reported 30 million euros in the summer, he has featured for less than 90 minutes in Serie A and those minutes have all come as substitute appearances.



If there was any time for him to get on the field, you would have thought this match would have been the occasion as his flair and pace that Inter were lacking looked like the perfect ingredients to open up the tie in their favour. Instead Joao Mario was brought on to replace the tiring Perisic and was completely ineffectual much to the frustration of the home support. 

 

Once again Inter proved that on the big occasions when points are paramount they just can’t get the job done, showing us all that more time and reinforcements are needed for the Nerazzurri to make the step up to the top three.
 


Ciro Di Baselli