UEFA Champions League 2021/22: How Inzaghi’s Inter can cause Liverpool problems in the first leg – tactical preview

The 2021-22 Champions League is back with the knockout stages beginning this week. It is going to have a big difference with the away goals rule scrapped giving an interesting dynamic to the ties that end in a draw with respect to the aggregate.

The interesting tactical battle of this week is going to be between Inter Milan and Liverpool with the former hosting the latter in their home. Inter Milan have recently suffered a slight slump in form that saw them drop points against their title rivals AC Milan and Napoli. Liverpool, on the other hand, has done extremely well in the domestic games across cups and league, putting the maximum pressure as possible on league-leaders Manchester City. Jurgen Klopp would be hoping that his men carry their domestic form to the European stage.

Although Liverpool are the favourites going into this tie, Inzaghi would be looking to counter that and definitely would hope that his players give their opponents a run for their money.

This preview in the form of tactical analysis examines both teams’ tactics and how Inzaghi could grab the three points his time. Lets begin the analysis. 

Inzaghis defensive plan to counter Liverpool

Those who have been following both teams would really say that both have some interesting common and similar principles both in and out of possession. Whether the chance creation dependence on their full-backs / wing-backs or tightly structuring themselves to be compact in the central, Liverpool and Inter Milans structures are among the best in Europe. Yet, they both have their own ways of approaching the game with Liverpool embedding Klopps gegen-pressing into their setup and going the German way while Inter taking their roots the Italian way of still having the old-school disciplined defence.

This means that in both legs, Inter Milan are going to concede possession and try to hit on the counter while Liverpool would be looking to stamp their authority not just by having possession but also making good use of that. Inzaghi hasnt made a lot of changes to the team that he inherited from his predecessor but an important one is the major use of zonal pressing instead of man-marking. This has given Inter Milan an additional dimension to their defence where it has not been easy for the opposition to manipulate the positions of the defenders and open up spaces. 

The image above shows how Inter Milan usually set up in the big games against the team’s looking to dominate possession at least in the early stages where the scores are level. The wing-back would stay deeper and in line with the central midfielders when the ball is with the centre-backs of the opposition. Once the CB plays it to the wide player, the pressing trigger would start with the wing-back jumping on the full-back holding the ball and the other players would orient themselves accordingly. 

But this would also offer them a potential downside when they would look to bait the full-back. Both the Liverpool full-backs are extremely good on the ball, especially Trent Alexander-Arnold. Giving them time and space would be a very risky approach if those two could unleash potential dangerous passes to the front three. We can see in the image below where AC Milan use this to attack the spaces behind the Inter Milan wing-backs using their forwards which can be even more dangerous if those forward are Salah or Mane.