It now feels like a formality that Inter will win the league title this season and thus will hit their 20th Scudetto before AC Milan, given the gap that has opened up in the table.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes this morning, Milan are currently 13 points behind Inter but have done worse in the past, even under Stefano Pioli. In 2019-20, after 26 rounds of action, they had fallen 21 points behind Antonio Conte’s Inter and were third in the table.
That, however, was a Milan side in the process of being rebuilt. Pioli had taken over from Marco Giampaolo after just a few games was completing the first phase of his work, then Covid arrived to halt the season and afterwards there was a big upturn.
To find a huge gap between the Rossoneri and the league leaders Inter you need to go back 16 years: in 2007-08 the Nerazzurri were 18 points above their city rivals.
In the previous season, which ended with the most recent Champions League win for the Rossoneri in Athens, the gap was 22 points (with a game in hand for Milan).
In the era of three points for a win, only on one other occasion have the Devil been so far from first-placed Inter was in 2001-02 915 points).
Inter are far better than any other team in the Serie A this season. Unless Milan address the reasons why they have lost points in some games they dominated, such as against the last one against Atalanta, there is no chance Milan can challenge for Inter next season. Small details make the difference. Lost chances, simple mistakes that cause penalties, wrong passes etc.
Small details make difference, like penalties called vs Milan not being called vs Inter. Inter players fouling or being in offside while scoring goals and VAR turning blind eye during replays. You are right, small details like that make the difference.
And not forgetting the injury crisis that Inter hasn’t ever heard of.
Lots of small things but when you sum all those up, you get a huge gap.
ever=even
You’re dancing around the main issue – the evident gap in player quality and the fact that Marotta is a mastermind and Furlani is an amateur by comparison. And of course Inzaghi outfoxing Pioli in each and every way.
No need to mince the details… Inter is a far better team of late.
I have been saying that for months now.
When you play the same players every single minute for 30 straight games, of course you will end up getting injuries. Also, when a player is called straight from the bench as a replacement for an injured player, they also get injured in turn because of lack of prior games or minutes.
That is totally Pioli’s fault. Inzaghi is not as stupid, he knows how to rotate the squad so that injuries don’t occur.
Pioli is the gap between inter and Milan on the table.
01/02 coaching change from Fatih Terim to Ancelotti, helped by a very poor 1st season at Milan by the biggest transfer in Milan’s history Rui Costa. Rui Costa was CDK level bad in his 1st season.
06/07 Milan started the season with minus 8 points.
07/08 was prime Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the peak of his powers.
The coach is the difference. Inzaghi 11 trophies as a coach in total. Pioli who has been a coach for way longer than Inzaghi only 1 trophey in his whole career lol.
Inter has among the best points totals ever in Serie A after 25 games. So it’s not us being totally crap. It’s them being incredibly good. But yeah we need to not keep letting in easy goals. We get so many penalties against us. It’s a horror. I get angry just thinking about all the stupid penalties…
I guess ‘Moneyball’ strategy did not help after all?