The Inter striker appeared to have been reintegrated smoothly back into the squad but Luciano Spalletti’s decision not to play him in the defeat to Lazio seemed strange

Inter were poised, at last, to put this season’s most disruptive soap opera behind them. Mauro Icardi had returned to first-team training on Tuesday, ending a 40-day absence that began when he was stripped of the club captaincy. It felt like an opportune moment: spirits were high following a win over Milan, and half the squad was away on international duty, including colleagues with whom he had clashed.

The striker appeared to reintegrate smoothly. News outlets circulated videos of him passing the ball to Ivan Perisic – his purported personal rival – during a practice match. Marcelo Brozovic, who made headlines last month by ‘liking’ the Instagram post which announced that Icardi had been stripped of the captaincy, now did the same for one reporting the Argentinian’s return to the fold.

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It was a stretch to imagine that every wounded relationship was fully healed. At the very least, though, it appeared Inter were ready to come together and put their focus on qualifying for the Champions League. That derby win had moved them back up to third, and created a six-point buffer to Roma in fifth place.

But then Lautaro Martínez injured his thigh on international duty. He would miss the weekend’s game against Lazio. The common assumption was that this might accelerate Icardi’s return to the side – leaving Inter with no other natural centre-forwards to choose from.

Luciano Spalletti went in a different direction. Instead of rushing Icardi back, he left the player out of his matchday squad altogether. Inter lined up with Keita Baldé in the centre of attack: just as they had against Eintracht Frankfurt on the last occasion when both Icardi and Lautaro were missing. They slumped to an identical 1-0 defeat.

Lazio deserve credit for weathering an early spell of Inter pressure and then responding – as they often have under Simone Inzaghi – with ruthless counter-attacking play. Sergej Milinkovic-Savic has been criticised for failing to deliver in big games before now, but helped initiate a move in his own half that ended with him rising above Brozovic to head home inside the Inter six-yard box.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inter midfielder Matteo Politano holds his face in his hands after defeat to Lazio. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images

Icardi watched from the stands as Spalletti worked through a series of ineffective substitutions, culminating in the 84th minute replacement of Keita with João Mário – a midfielder. The manager had backed himself into a corner, his only other option being the 19-year-old youth team player Facundo Colidio: yet to make his senior debut.

If the decision to omit Icardi from the matchday squad was bemusing, then Spalletti’s post-game comments only made it worse. “He has to sit out today for how he has behaved,” said the manager.

“You say he could have played 10 minutes, could have played 20 minutes. I think he could even have played a full half … But you have to be inside a changing room, you have to have credibility. I’ve had credibility with my players for 22 years. You’re not the ones who get to write my history. It’s the players I’ve shared a changing room with. Not you.”

Fans may share Spalletti’s anger at how Inter were made to negotiate through a lawyer – Paolo Nicoletti – just to get Icardi back to training in the first place. “What am I to do from here going forward?” he posed. “Should I send 20 letters out asking the players’ legal representatives whether I can call them up or not?”

But what do such words accomplish? Icardi has weathered plenty of public criticism, so it hardly seems plausible that this outburst would set him on the road to contrition. All Spalletti actually achieved was to put himself at the centre of the story. Rather than take responsibility for a limp performance, he simply sought to play the victim: as he does dispiritingly often.

Even the attempt to represent Icardi’s exclusion as a hard stance against disrespectful behaviour was made to look false as he went on to suggest that the player could feature against Genoa on Wednesday. Spalletti did not indicate that any act of penitence would be required between now and then.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sergej Milinkovic-Savic heads the only goal of the game. Photograph: Daniele Mascolo/Reuters

The only saving grace for Inter is that they remain in pole position among the pack of teams battling for third and fourth place. Milan lost away to Sampdoria on Saturday, courtesy of a goal gifted to their opponents in the very first minute – when Gianluigi Donnarumma passed the ball directly to Grégoire Defrel. Roma then crashed to a humiliating 4-1 defeat at home to Napoli.

If anything, that scoreline flattered them. Claudio Ranieri confessed afterward that he had “no idea” how his team had made it to half-time at 1-1, scoring from a penalty just before the interval. Roma were missing Alessandro Florenzi and Stephan El Shaarawy, both of whom picked up injuries on international duty, but that could not excuse such disarray.

By full-time, media outlets in Rome were calling for the return of Eusebio Di Francesco as manager. This was Ranieri’s second defeat in three games, with the previous loss coming against relegation battlers Spal. At least on this occasion there were no reports of players coming to blows at half-time, as El Shaarawy and Edin Dzeko did back then.

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Ranieri is not to blame for the mess Roma find themselves in. Di Francesco’s tenure ended last month with a 3-0 defeat to Lazio followed by the 3-1 loss to Porto that knocked his team out of the Champions League. The problems here run deeper: to a club stuck in limbo as it waits for final approval to develop its new stadium, to the muddled transfer strategy led by Monchi, and perhaps to a void in leadership since he departed.

Before kick-off on Sunday, Francesco Totti reflected on his own directorial role, saying: “Let’s see if, from now on, I carry more weight in decision-making.” He was influential in the decision to bring in Ranieri as a short-term caretaker.

A summer of upheaval beckons, with the likes of Dzeko and Kostas Manolas expected to move on and no clarity yet on whether Daniele De Rossi, who turns 36 in July, will want to carry on for another year. Missing out on the Champions League would make things an awful lot harder.

Talking points

• Massimiliano Allegri said he left Moise Kean out of his starting XI to face Empoli in part because he wanted to protect the player from excessive hype. It doesn’t help his cause when said player comes off the bench in a goalless game and proceeds to net the winner with his first touch.

• Happy 50th to Gabriel Batistuta! Well, OK, he actually celebrated his birthday in February, but Fiorentina fans held a celebration for him on Sunday with 6,000 packing out the Piazza della Signoria (on top of the 37,000 who attended their 1-1 draw against Torino at the Artemio Franchi). “I’ll have another party here for my 100th,” he promised.

SportsCenter (@SC_ESPN) La familia de Batistuta, entre lágrimas, subió al escenario y vivió en primera persona el terrible homenaje al goleador argentino en Florencia. pic.twitter.com/gMPlgO6dcZ

• Some very lovely goals scored this weekend, from Daniele Baselli to Arkadiusz Milik. But Rolando Mandragora takes some beating.