Chivu has grabbed the top of the table over Conte, whose Napoli seems tired. Here is the effect of the recoveries in mid-January (waiting for Milan).
Inter produced their first Scudetto victory of the season and only the next (few) weeks will tell if it is already a decisive escape or just the first action of the championship. It does so thanks to Pio Esposito, symbol of the new young trend, capable of shouldering an evening that was becoming complicated also due to the load of fatigue on the muscles and head of the league leaders.
The same evil that struck and sank Antonio Conte’s orphaned Napoli a few hours earlier. Who knows if with their leader on the bench and not confined to the stands, the Neapolitans could have thrown their hearts over the Parma obstacle. There is no counter-proof except that the draw granted to the Emilians combines with the one achieved against Verona and fuels the regrets of the Italian champions.
To get the better of Lecce, Inter had to throw all their variants into play: first a large rotation, which worked intermittently, then the change of formation for the final assault. If there is a lesson in this midweek round that will have to be completed with Milan’s difficult trip to Como, it is that Chivu manages the deepest and most qualitative squad in the championship and, unlike what happened to Simone Inzaghi a year ago, he is managing to exploit this advantage.
Before the big match at San Siro against Napoli, it was said that a possible success for the Nerazzurri would have strongly influenced the Scudetto. They would have been seven points ahead and now they are six: has anything changed? From a strictly numerical point of view, yes, even if not very much, due to the feeling of a season that is being channeled towards the definitive hierarchy, no. Simply put, Inter has more strings to its bow to deal with complex situations but which, added one after the other, make the difference.
Napoli is stuck with its qualities which are accompanied by a certain amount of limitations. At Maradona there were limited successes against Cagliari, Genoa and Pisa and a laborious comeback against Verona; It cannot be a coincidence if since August the script has been repeating itself regardless of the performers, the injuries (new alarm for Neres yesterday) and Conte’s choices. Who will be right to complain about the bad luck (not the referees) but which certainly did not contribute to valorising the market made available to him by De Laurentiis.
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