Inter’s Inzaghi sets up his defence in a very unusual way, I hope Arsenal can find a way through

Just Arsenal News

·6. November 2024

Inter’s Inzaghi sets up his defence in a very unusual way, I hope Arsenal can find a way through

Inter set up in a very unusual way, I pray we don’t come unstuck.

I believe every gooner will agree that this is not an ideal game to play off the back of a defeat, but here we’ve found ourselves in this position due to this grueling fixture schedule. With that said however, we can’t complain and instead should be looking forward to watching the Gunners in UCL action again.

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We’ll be coming up against an Inter Milan side that has been really challenging for and winning major trophies in the last few seasons, they won the Serie A last season with a whopping 19 points gap between second placed Juventus, and you would remember them almost winning the UCL a season prior to that when they narrowly lost to City in 2023, the current Seria A holders have been this good because of the unusual but effective way they have been setup by Simone Inzaghi.

Inter usually setup in a 3-5-2 formation on paper, however the reality is that they don’t play the way you would expect a team to act playing in this formation. This is especially so in their build up play, with their center backs being the ones unusually responsible for progressing the team into the half spaces in attack.

Out of their three players at the back, Alessandro Bastoni is the one who does this the most with the Italian mostly responsible for progressing them up the pitch by either making use of his excellent passing range or his ball carrying ability. When he does progress it however, you would expect him to offload quickly before retreating, But the Italian stays high up in the left half space to further create with crosses from deep or combining with Dimarco on the left wing. The stats back this up given the Italian ranks in the 99th per centile in these following stats:

Shot creating action- 2.30

Progressive carries- 2.43

And progressive carries received- 2.78.

OCTOBER 20: Paulo Dybala of AS Roma competes for the ball with Alessandro Bastoni of FC Internazionale during the Serie A match between AS Roma and FC Internazionale at Stadio Olimpico o (Photo by Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)

The fact that he is in the 99th percentile for progressive carries received as well just shows how high up the pitch he usually operates in consistently for Inter Milan. One benefactor of the way Bastoni plays is Federico Dimarco, the wing-back is probably the most attacking fullback in Europe, due to Bastoni’s closeness and support which allows him to bomb forward, creating all sort of problems for opposition fullbacks.

I know some of us may be thinking that this tactic will definitely leave them open at the back, but the answer is no and this is because more often than not, the midfield players of Zielinski, Mikhtaryan or Barella will fall back in to play as the center backs. There have been some times this season, and more especially last season where I’ve seen the entire back three playing in midfield and the midfielders in the back three which is a very unusual sight to behold on a football pitch, that’s what we’ll be coming up against however, and we can only pray that we will have enough nous to get a win at the San Siro!

Martin Ødegaard is back in training ahead of the game but I think the fixture will come too early to take any risks, however we will need him massively!

What are your thoughts on this Inter set up, is it something that we will have to pay attention to greatly?

BENJAMIN KENNETH.

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