Serie A 2020/21: Inter vs Milan – tactical analysis

The first Milan derby of the 2020/21 Serie A season was played on Saturday and finished with quite a surprise victory for the Rossoneri. Stefano Pioli’s Milan managed to pick up a vital three points and claim bragging rights in a 2-1 victory against Antonio Conte’s Inter.

A Zlatan Ibrahimovic brace sealed the victory for the team in red and black to continue their one hundred percent record to the start of the current campaign. Inter, on the other hand, have struggled in defence this season in particular. Going forward they have been rather prolific, scoring 11 goals in their 4 league games. However, in defence they have now conceded 7 in 4.

In retrospect, they have a number of first-team members missing due to the coronavirus, including Ashley Young, Milan Skriniar, and Roberto Gagliardini, which could have been a major influence on the end result. Regardless, Conte and his men will be ultimately disappointed with the final score as they have not lost a league fixture against their rivals in the derby since January 2016.

This article will be a tactical analysis of I Rossoneri’s win over Inter. It will be an in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both sides in their tactics, throughout the game, as well as taking a look at where each team could have improved in their set-up.

Lineups and formations:

Due to a high amount of Covid-19 cases between both sides, there were some forced changes amongst both sets of teams going into this derby.

Antonio Conte deployed his typical 3-5-2 in this game, however, there were multiple changes from the side that drew 1-1 nearly two weeks ago against Lazio. These forced changes were mainly in the backline. Both Alessandro Bastoni and Milan Skriniar were self-isolating and were unable to start this game. This left Conte having to use two full-backs, in Aleksandar Kolarov and Danilo D’Ambrosio, as the wide centre-backs alongside Stefan de Vrij.