With Inter hot on the trail of a Champions League spot and Sampdoria looking over their shoulder, trying to stay away from the relegation battle this Serie A encounter had an interesting back story. This tactical analysis will look at how Claudio Ranieri’s side tried to combat the tactics used by Antonio Conte and his Inter side as both teams looked to get their restarted campaigns off to positive starts.
Game context
With Sampdoria only a point above the relegation zone and Inter trying to cement their place in third and extend the gap between Atalanta, Roma, and themselves further this catch up game took on much significance for both sides.
Samp has scored just 6 goals in the first half of games so far this season against an xG of 12.6. They start slowly and have had to play catch up in the second half of their games having conceded twenty-four goals in the first half of those games.
On the other side, Inter have squandered thirteen leading positions so far this season, a stat they wouldn’t be proud of Inter have been leading games for over 1000 minutes throughout the season, and Sampdoria have been in front for only 156 minutes. All of those stats made this game a potential slow-burning thriller and this analysis will look at the key aspects of the match.
Team News
Inter, as expected continued with their 3-5-2 shape that is a Conte trademark. There were some expecting to see Alexis Sanchez start the game after his good performance off the bench in the Coppa Italia Semi-Final loss at Napoli, but Conte stuck with his first-choice front two of Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez. Christian Eriksen kept his spot in the #10 position while Ashley Young and Antonio Candreva continued in the wingback spots.
Sampdoria, this their first game back after the resumption went with a 5-2-2-1 shape with Ranieri looking to exploit wide areas while hoping to use two roaming #10’s to at times play like a 3-4-3 and at others, a 5-4-1. Antonio La Gumina led the line for Sampdoria with Gaston Ramirez and Jakob Jankto completing the top line with Fabio Quagliarella missing through injury. Maya Yoshida and Omar Colley were reunited in their solid partnership at the heart of the defence for Ranieri with Lorenzo Tonelli suspended.
