Date : 23/04/2016

Venue : Stadio Giuseppe Meazza

Competition : Serie A 2015/2016, Matchday 35

The starting line ups:

Roberto Mancini started this match with his nowadays preferred formation, the 4-4-2, with Samir Handanovic sitting under the posts behind Juan Jesus, Miranda, Murillo and Nagatomo that together created the defensive line. Felipe Melo started once again in front of defense with Kondogbia next to him, however, instead of Gary Medel. Biabiany was playing on the left wing (at some point during the first half moved to the other side though) and Brozovic on the right, moving centrally on many occasions, either to leave the wing free for a FB or in order to help the build-up phase by offering another central passing option. He was also complementing very well Jovetic’s free moves on offense and made vertical runs or passes behind Udinese’s defensive line. Up front played Icardi who was staying primarily inside the penalty area’s width.

Udinese on the other side, started with Karnezis as their goalkeeper. Wague, Danilo and Felipe were the three CBs, with Edenilson and Widmer on either side of them as the wingbacks. Kuzmanovic was protecting the defense as the DM with Fernandes and Badu some metres in front of him in attack. Up front Zapata played next to the much more active and free on his role Thereau.



Mancini changes the way of defending again

As many of you, that read these tactical analyses after every match on this site, may have noticed, Mancini has proved to be a tactical chameleon this year (with mixed results however), changing many things depending on the opponent, from the overall shape of his team, to movements on set pieces and the way the defenders mark their opponents during opposition crosses.

It was interesting, therefore, to see the different way with which the CBs, marked during this game, especially compared to some other obvious examples, such as the 3vs2 against Juventus or the 4vs2 that was created against Juventus’ strikers, once again, that time in the first round, and was allowed by the positions of the wingers and the CMs that protected them.

This time, Murillo and Miranda followed the movements of the strikers, in order to not leave them any time and space to receive the ball, sometimes far from their defensive line and with big spaces being created between them. Spaces that were filled and protected though by Felipe Melo.

Udinese Goal

Although Udinese never managed to take advantage of Inter’s CB way of marking, by making vertical runs from deep in the spaces created between them for example, Thereau was actually able to score a goal early on in the game simply by taking advantage of Murillo’s slower reflexes/reaction during that moment.

As you can see in the above gif, with Inter on their build-up phase spread in order to give width to their offense and the ball lost, Thereau makes a move towards the ball dragging Murillo with him and immediately turns and tries to move towards the spaces created behind them where he receives the ball to score. It was a classic forward move by the Frenchman that took advantage of Inter’s spacing and thus inability to cover behind Murillo.

The game of course from that point on took the a path in which Udinese sat back in their 5-3-2 shape and tried to move Inter towards the less dangerous spaces on or near the wings.



Udinese’s problems on defense

Since Luigi De Canio took over from Colantuono on the Udinese bench, the Friuliani not only have they managed to get some big results (for example against Napoli and Fiorentina), but they have also improved their defensive structure, discipline and concentration, that were lacking especially in the first round game between the two teams .

Naturally, though, they still have many problems. Let’s take a look at them:

Spaces between the lines

As you can see from the above pictures, with the three CMs being man oriented, which means that many times two of them were marking passing options, mainly centrally to force the ball wide, and the other one confronting the ball carrier by moving near him, huge spaces were created between them and the defensive line for players like Jovetic or Brozovic to drop into and receive the ball.

Another problem that could be seen was evident during their defensive transition phase, when with Kuzmanovic staying centrally, Wague was responsible to move upwards towards the wing in order to recycle the ball on attack or to press the ball carrier or a ball receiver during the transition. However he was very sloppy with his passing, losing the ball a few times easily and also applied pressure very slowly on the ball carrier, during defensive transitions, which meant that the opponent had the time to turn and leave him behind moving at the same time behind the defensive line.

Furthermore, Kuzmanovic’s returns on defense were very slow leaving the central space in front of the CBs unprotected. The three midfielder’s shifting from the one wing to the other, when the ball changed sides, was also slow and sloppy with many big spaces created between them.

As you can understand therefore, with Udinese content with sitting back and defending in a sometimes sloppy manner, everything depended on Inter and how capable they were to take advantage of those mistakes.



Second Half

With Inter scoring before the end of the first half, Mancini seemed confident and did not change almost anything on his team’s approach. The only thing they had to do was continue to try and take advantage of Udinese’s bad spacing and thus sometimes lack of help and cover to the CBs, and also attempt more vertical passes targeted behind the defense.

It was one of those passes that gave Biabiany the chance to make the cross to Jovetic for the 2-1.

De Canio makes changes and Mancini responds

With Udinese now 2-1 down, De Canio could no longer play conservatively and so he changes his team’s shape by bringing on another attacking player, Ryder Matos in Felipe’s position. Udinese was now playing with a 4-man defense with the two FBs moving high during offense to provide width. Kuzmanovic was staying closer to the two CBs, leaving thus more freedom to the two CMs to attack. Up front Zapata stayed centrally to act as the target man, with Ryder Matos on the right wing and Thereau on a free role moving all over the pitch.

Seeing possible dangers between the midfield and defensive line, by the free movements of players like Thereau or Fernandes, Mancini , around the 80th minute, decided to instruct Eder to fall on the right wing during defence and Melo to move some metres back in order to be able to cover the spaces between the lines but also between the CBs better, creating a 4-5-1 shape , that was becoming 4-4-2 when Brozovic was moving upwards centrally to apply pressure to the ball carrier.

This change worked well, shutting off possible lanes and spaces in which the above mentioned Udinese players might have moved, but Inter as Inter does in their usual for this season suicidal fashion almost conceded a goal on the 94th minute from a Hallfredsson rebound shot after a foul which as you can see below, 3 or 4 players decided to watch instead of cover the space that the shot was eventually taken.



Conclusion

With Inter scoring a third via Eder, an uninteresting match from a league table point of view, (in which Inter showed many good things, such as Kondogbia’s finally improved confidence to make more vertical passes, but also a few bad ones, to which I will refer in a future article), ended.

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