Dark Cloud still haven’t flee from Inter Milan’s head as the future of their new coach Gian Piero Gasperini’s is simply in the edge after the Nerazzurri surprisingly picked another defeat in the league this midweek.
Yet to win any single games from all of their official matches, Inter suffered a shocking 3-1 defeat against newly promoted side, Novara on Tuesday night as they also loses Andrea Rannochia, who was sent off in last 10 minutes of the match.
Arriving at the artificial pitch in Novara, Inter Milan were supposedly hunting for their first victory in an official match this season, which might definitely save Gasperini’s future and also a lovely gift for Inter’s captain Javier Zanetti, who was celebrating his 757th appearance for the Nerazzurri. However, things doesn’t seem going in the visitor’s way as in the early minutes of the match, the highly motivated home team already created several dangerous goal scoring chances, while Gasperini’s boys looked to be lacking sharpness going forward, despite dominating ball possession.
Novara’s counter attacking tactic simply worked to perfection as in the 38th minute they finally opened their account in the game through Meggiorini’s fine strike in the penalty area, which can’t be stopped by both Christian Chivu and also Julio Cesar in Inter’s goal. The Nerazzurri tried to get a fast reply for the home team’s advantage, but they looked to be running out of ideas in trying to prize open the newly promoted side’s defense, who were just playing really solid on the match.
Finding his team a goal down, Gasperini made two early changes in the second half as he replaces Diego Forlan and Luc Castaignos with Giampaolo Pazzini and Joel Obi, an interesting choices indeed as the ex-Genoa coach seemingly changing his system into a 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 format. The changes didn’t really showed any improvement though as the match still pretty much flowed in the same way as the first period with Inter having more of the possession but Novara looked more dangerous in the attack.
After failing to find any break through, midway in the second period a pretty controversial substitution was made by Gasperini by taking off Wesley Sneijder for summer signing Mauro Zarate, another questionable decision as Sneijder is pretty much the only creative outlet Inter have on the pitch. Zarate’s entrance apparently didn’t really improve the visitor’s condition as things got even worse for the Nerazzurri in the final five minutes when they were forced to play with 10 men and concede a penalty after Rannochia fouled Takayuki Morimoto in the penalty area.
The tall, young defender received a marching order since the referee decided to give Rannochia his second yellow card in the game, forcing Inter to play the last few minutes of the match with a man down. Novara themselves didn’t waste the opportunity handed in front of them as Marco Rigoni perfectly executed his penalty kick, drilling the ball straight into the middle while Cesar already flew into the right side of his goal.
Inter did get a goal back though after Esteban Cambiasso capitalized in an awful clearance made by Giorgi, allowing the Argentinian a room to strike a fine shot that can’t be reached by Ujkani on the Novara’s goal. Unfortunately for the Nerazzurri, they’re small hope to rescue the game pretty much ended two minutes later when Rigoni scored his second goal in the match, tapping in Giorgi’s ricochet shot which was palmed away by Cesar right in front of the home team two goal hero.
Match Report:
Novara v Inter Milan 3-1
Goals: Meggiorini 38 (Novara), Rigoni pen 86, 91 (Novara); Cambiasso 89 (Inter)
Novara: Ujkani; Dellafiore, Paci, Lisuzzo, Gemiti; Porcari, Radovanovic (Marianini 64), Rigoni; Mazzarani (Jeda 67); Morimoto, Meggiorini (Giorgi 62)
Inter: Julio Cesar; Lucio, Chivu, Ranocchia; Zanetti, Cambiasso, Sneijder (Zarate 67), Nagatomo; Forlan (Pazzini 46), Milito, Castaignos (Obi 46)
