Half of the defenders are somewhat unsettling, and unfortunately Motta is not reliable. Motta, who had been injured for a long time and made his first appearance this season, seemed to have relapsed shortly after coming on. Although he gritted his teeth and played until the end of the game, it still sparked controversy. Once Motta enters the injury list again, Zanetti will have to remain in the midfield position, which makes the use of personnel in Inter Milan's backline even more precarious. In the defense, apart from Samuel who is an unstable factor after just recovering, Chivu also counts as one. The performance of Inter Milan's left-back is still worrying; at the 11th minute, a pass to Coutinho less than 5 meters away was too forceful. Fortunately, the Brazilian young player had excellent skills to control the ball. At the beginning of the second half, an aimless shot taken in the opponent's front field was more like helping the opponent clear the ball. At the 76th minute when Lazari crossed from the right flank, Chivu rashly jumped up to touch the ball, causing it to bounce high and hit the underside of the crossbar before falling down. Conti immediately instinctively followed up with a shot, but was bravely caught by Julio Cesar.
Inter Milan won 1-0 against Cagliari with great difficulty, especially in the final stages of the second half when they were besieged by their opponents, and could have easily turned 3 points into 1 point if luck wasn't on their side. More worryingly, there are many issues in the defense line. Samuel, who has just recovered from injury, is clearly not in his best form, while Chivu continues to perform unsatisfactorily.
In the next two weeks, Inter Milan faces a death schedule, playing Tottenham Hotspur home and away in the Champions League, which is their biggest rival for group advancement, and consecutively facing the Genoa city rivals Sampdoria and Genoa in Serie A, all of which are tough matches. If the defensive problems are not properly resolved, Benitez's days will be tough. The foremost challenge is the upcoming Champions League match against Tottenham at home on Wednesday. The coach needs to carefully consider the defensive lineup, such as using Santon.
Samuel got injured three weeks ago in the game between Inter Milan and Bari at home. After recuperation, he finally returned to action in this match, partnering with Lucio as central defenders. However, compared to Lucio's standout performance in both attack and defense, Samuel showed signs of struggling to keep up, with at least three embarrassing performances: at the 14th minute, he made an extremely dangerous back-pass, which was slightly light, allowing the Cagliari striker to rush forward. Luckily, Julio Cesar timely came out and calmly skipped over the opponent to defuse the danger; at the 47th minute, both Nenê and Mattri's consecutive shots were fantastically saved by Julio Cesar, which was also related to Samuel's inability to catch up in time; at the 74th minute, it was Samuel again who touched the ball with his hand when blocking Mattri's pass, sparking a penalty controversy.