Last week, I wrote an analysis on Milan’s Champions League match against Barcelona and how, despite their win, I thought they played negative, anti-football. (You can read that here.) I wanted to see Milan try to take the game to Barcelona as they were at home, but instead, Milan sat so deep, packing their half 25 yards from goal and just allowing Barcelona to keep swinging the ball from flank to flank looking for openings.

So after this disappointing match, I thought I’d watch the Milan derby so that I could see the differences between a Milan that, I felt, were just hoping not to concede against a superior opponent and a Milan that really wanted to go out a win a game and, as expected, the derby match showed a different side of Milan. Here’s how both sides looked:

Milan’s Back Four

Coming off of their match against Barcelona where Milan showed little in terms of an attacking mentality, against Inter, Milan’s back four try to support the attack as much as possible. At the kick off, Abate had taken his first steps into Inter’s half and within the first four minutes, Zapata had taken the ball 10 yards into Inter’s half unopposed.

While Mexes and Zapata would try to build attacks from the back, Abate and De Sciglio got forward as much as they could and were able to so with a good amount of space and both El Shaarawy and Boateng would drift inside. In terms of quality, Abate was lacking. He got forward a decent amount during the match against Barcelona as well, but there again, he really failed to make much of an impact when he got on the ball.

De Sciglio, though, caused Nagatomo an increasing number of problems. He was consistently able to find either El Shaarawy or Balotelli open in Inter’s box and get it to their feet. De Sciglio should have gotten at least two assists from Balotelli goals as he delivered two balls the forward on the six yard line, only for Balotelli to slip at a crucial time on one and hit the second right at Handanovic.

Inter’s First Half

Defensively, Inter were in shambles in the first half. We’ve talked already about how many chances Milan were able to create down the left side of the field with Nagatomo unable to handle the runs of De Sciglio and the play of El Shaarawy, however there were so many holes in Inter’s defense through the middle of the field between the lines.

Whenever Montolivo picked up the ball from either his centre backs or Abbiati, he was able to advance toward Inter’s half, unopposed, before picking out a pass. Cambiasso and Gargano were busy with Nocerino and Muntari and Cassano wasn’t coming back to mark Montolivo or fill the space between Palacio and the midfield.

More concerning was the lack of a real presence in front of Inter’s back four. Milan’s goal came after a good tackle from Zapata on the halfway line that led to the ball at the feet of Boateng. As fortunate as that maybe, when Boateng turned, he had no one within 10 yards of him and Juan Jesus was backing off (see the picture below). He was able to pick out the run of El Shaarawy, who occupied both Nagatomo and Ranocchia and finished well past Handanovic. It may have been that Cambiasso and Gargano were just caught in transition, however, there were so many times where Boateng and El Shaarawy were able to drift inside, receive a ball to their feet and turn.

Inter’s Second Half

Luckily for Inter, Stramaccioni was wise to the situation and made amends. His first change was to simply switch Zanetti and Nagatomo, with the former going to the right and the latter moving to the left. It worked well too. De Sciglio made far less attacking runs down the left side of the pitch and so that was a main outlet of Milan’s attack now neutralized.

Stramaccioni also address the lack of pressure on Montolivo and Milan’s centre backs and got his team pressing all three, not allowing them the time and space to build attacks. Again, it worked well as neither Mexes or Zapata were particularly composed on the ball with a hint of pressure and Montolivo looking uncomfortable and making some poor passes with the increased pressure.

Stramoccioni made one other change, bringing Schelotto on for Cambiasso, allowing Guarin to play through the middle, with Schelotto taking up the wide right area. This change, as well as the swtich of Nagatomo and Zanetti, allowed Inter to score their goal. Nagatomo was able to push on on the left side of the pitch and he came in on his right foot and whipped in a cross that Schelotto headed into the bottom corner at the near post. Gaurin wouldn’t have been able to provide an aerial threat like Schelotto and Zanetti wasn’t that effective when he did get up the pitch.

Conclusion

A nice open game from the two Milan clubs. Milan will be disappointed by the draw, especially coming off of their win against Barcelona, but they really should have been 2 or 3-0 up by half time and will rue their missed chances. The way the first half was going, Inter would have been happy to end the game 1-1 and as they continue to work their way through something of a transitional period, they are still in contention for the third Champions League spot.

One thing that marred the entertainment of such an open Serie A game was the racist chants directed toward Mario Balotelli by the Inter supporters. It’s incredibly sad that racism, though having never left the game, has been grabbing the headlines again in the last two years. Inter was fined €50,000 for their fans’ actions and chants. Not a great amount of money to really repress the behaviour. It looked an even weaker message to the fans when Balotelli was fined €10,000 for directing a ‘shh’ gesture toward the Inter supporters. Basically, a ridiculous effort by Lega Serie A to do anything about getting racism out of the game, but that’s just my opinion. I leave it to you to make your form your own opinion on the matter,