Sampdoria 0-0 Inter Milan: Talking points as relegation battlers frustrate Scudetto race underdogs

With 16 matches still to be played by every team in the league this season, Inter Milan appear to have lost their last hope of catching up with Napoli in the race for the Serie A title, after failing to beat relegation-threatened Sampdoria at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa on Monday.

Inter frustrated

With Romelu Lukaku back from injury and finally fit enough to start, it was interesting to see the big Belgian team up with Lautaro Martinez upfront again – the duo that played a huge part in Inter’s 2020/21 Scudetto triumph with a total of 41 goals and 20 assists combined. And with the visitors expected to dominate the game against Sampdoria, it was only natural to assume the outcome would very much depend on their ability to turn that domination into goals.

And it certainly proved that way, though not in the way they would’ve hoped it would. With 66% of possession, Inter took a total of 25 shots, 19 from open play, but only five on target and obviously none that hit the back of the net.

The first chance fell for Lukaku in the second minute of the game, as Nicolo Barella set him up for a one-on-one with Jeison Murillo. The Inter striker did well to fend the Samdpdoria defender off, turn and fire, but goalkeeper Emil Audero stood his ground and saved the shot. Hakan Calhanoglu came close with a 20-yard effort that trickled wide of the post 10 minutes later. In the 19th, a nicely worked move between Lukaku, Calhanoglu and Matteo Darmian set Martinez up for a shot from around 10 yard but the Argentine mishit it, and eventually Darmian just missed the top corner from the same distance in the same attack.

It seemed at that point that it would only be a matter of time before Inter broke the deadlock, but chance after chance went begging with the scoreboard still reading 0-0, and nerves appeared to be creeping in on Simone Inzaghi’s men. As the final whistle loomed closer, they increased the pressure again, but Calhanoglu fired straight at Audero in the 77th, and then Edin Dzeko, who had earlier replaced Lukaku, set the Turk up for another ill-fated effort in the 83rd. Defender Francesco Acerbi let one fly from range in the 92nd, and that was about as close as the Nerazzurri came to scoring all game as Audero diverted it onto the crossbar. In the dying seconds, Federico Dimarco squared the ball to Martinez inside the box, but Martinez messed the reception up and failed to get a shot off before committing a foul.

To sum up, a little more composure would’ve easily won the game for the visitors, but they simply didn’t have any and it ended up costing them two points in what will now become a fight to remain in the top four, rather than the title race.