Serie A : Internazionale- Sampdoria
Internazionale featured very heaving in my notes either side of the Christmas break, they were in terrific form and closing in on the Champions League places and prior to a win at Bologna, I spoke about that and how they had immediately got back on track after their 7 match winning run was ended at Juventus in what Inter felt was daylight robbery............
All credit to Inter for that 2-0 win over Empoli last weekend despite missing both Ivan Perisic and Mauro Icardi ............
Ahead of Internazionale's daunting trip to Turin to play Juventus last weekend I spoke about the golden run that I Nerazzurri were on .............
Inter are the most in form team in Italy and have won seven straight and we have sided with them for most of those and my notes on the last of those, a 3-0 defeat of Pescara are reproduced below the "good luck" sign off. This is, of course, a major step up and those seven wins came against teams with an average league placing of 14th, but it has bred confidence and Inter's best performance came in a 3-0 win over 5th placed Lazio.
Juve will doubtless feel they would like some revenge, after losing the reverse meeting in Milan, but that result should also provide the visitor with belief that they can repeat the win.
Juventus won 1-0 in a hugely controversial contest, where Inter felt they were denied two "clear" penalties and which is still being argued about six days later . That is a mistake for Inter, they are improving and can compete with the best and should just forget (if not forgive) and move on and there are three hugely valuable points up for grabs today. Inter are back down to sixth, but remain in Champions League contention ( they have still to host both Roma and Napoli) and as a minimum will want to finish above Milan.
It can only be about three points today, but they will have to claim them without both Ivan Perisic (pictured) and Mauro Icardi who are suspended after the events of last weekend. Perisic loves to miss a one on one, but has 7 goals and five assists, top scorer Icardi 15 and 8 , there is some overlap there of course, but that is a massive contribution considering Inter have "only " scored 37 goals in total. Icardi has also played every single Serie A minute this season, he missed two home games last season, both 1-0 wins over Roma and Genoa. That should give the hosts confidence they can still win and if they can defeat Roma, they can certainly beat Empoli who have only scored six road goals this season, but who have conceded the fewest of any team in the bottom 8 and by some way, giving up 8 goals less than the other bottom 7.
They get Perisic back today which will help, but Icardi is still sidelined, the pressure is certainly on to win today after Lazio and Atalanta picked up maximum points yesterday.
They won that 1-0 , but then lost 3-1 at home to Roma, a result which really saw their top three ambitions come off the rails. However, they have scored 14 goals in three (!) games since, including putting seven past highflying Atalanta, who have only conceded twice in their other nine starts played either side of that fixture. Inter come into this game in sixth, nine points behind Napoli in 3rd, with this game in hand. They can close that to six and have still to host Cardinal Angelo Voiello's favourite team (you either know or you don't !) at the San Siro at the end of this month. Inter's CL ambitions have to be kept alive until then and cannot restart without anything other than three points tonight. The hosts are pretty much at full strength.
Sampdoria are 9th, with no upward ambitions, or at least any realistic ones, being 10 points adrift of 8th placed Fiorentina. They have no relegation concerns , they are already safe and the likelihood is that they will finish 9th or 10th, so motivation is not huge and you have to feel that remaining energies will be saved for games in Genoa. The visitors arrive without Luis Muriel, who, with 10 goals and 9 assists, has contributed to over 54% of all Samp's goals, he has played some part in all 29 league starts this season, but in the last campaign he played ten minutes or less in nine games through which Samp were 1-2-6 with a 6-19 goal difference. Inter lost the reverse fixture 1-0 since when they have won 13 of 18 starts, including 8 of 9 at home, all by 2+ goals.
Hard to see a way back into this for Samp without Muriel should they fall behind and then, the floodgates could open.
1.25 units Internazionale -1.75 goals 2.25 asian line/Sportmarket.
Sampdoria: Falcone, Puggioni, Viviano, Bereszynski, Dodô, Pavlovic, Regini, Sala, Silvestre, Simic, Skriniar, Alvarez, Barreto, Cigarini, Djuricic, Fernandes, Linetty, Palombo, Praet, Torreira,Budimir, Quagliarella, Schick.
Good Luck.
