Inter got back on track at the Stadio Castellani with goals from Danilo D’Ambrosio and Federico Dimarco, but Empoli had penalty appeals and rued the Samuele Ricci red card.
Simone Inzaghi sat out a touchline ban after his furious reaction to the late Juventus equalising penalty and rotated the squad at the Stadio Castellani. Andrea Pinamonti was eager to impress his parent club, with Federico Di Francesco and Simone Romagnoli injured.
Pinamonti threatened in the opening minutes on Fabiano Parisi’s cross, denied by an Alessandro Bastoni block. Samir Handanovic then had to fly to fingertip away the Stojanovic scorcher, then Danilo D’Ambrosio had to fling himself in the way of Sebastiano Luperto’s shot like a human shield in the six-yard box after a short corner.
At the other end, Guglielmo Vicario fingertipped the Federico Dimarco screamer over the bar.
Inter ran a big risk when D’Ambrosio seemed to clip the back of Nedim Bajrami’s ankle, but penalty appeals were waved away and VAR did not intervene.
Moments later, D’Ambrosio made a difference at the other end, his towering header on a smart chipped Alexis Sanchez assist giving Inter the lead.
Empoli failed to make the most of their corner and as Barella was going on the counter, he was wiped out in midfield by a ridiculous Samuele Ricci tackle. The referee considered it worthy of a straight red card.
Alexis Sanchez had the ball in the back of the net, but was marginally offside on the rebound from a Matteo Darmian parried strike.
Roberto Gagliardini also threatened to extend Inter’s lead, his header thumping the far post on a Darmian cross.
Vicario made an extraordinary save to claw the Lautaro Martinez header off the line, millimetres from crossing over completely.
The goalkeeper also saw his gloves stung by Gagliardini from distance, until Lautaro Martinez’s cross found Federico Dimarco to fire into the roof of the net at the back post for 2-0.
Gagliardini had the ball in the net from a free kick, but admitted straight away it had bounced off his arm, as he misjudged the header.
Handanovic still had to keep out the Leonardo Mancuso strike and Dimarco skimmed the upright, but another Inter goal was disallowed for Stefano Sensi’s offside position.
Empoli 0-2 Inter
D’Ambrosio 34 (I), Dimarco 66 (I)
Sent off: Ricci 52 (E)
“Inter got back on track… but Empoli had penalty appeals and rued the Samuele Ricci red card”
Every time Inter win a game, there is “but” that follows and then a qualifier that suggests that Inter received a gift. Actually the person who wrote this is a bad writer. “rued the Samuele Ricci red card” is horrible. Of course they “rued” it, even though “rue” is pretentious word. But again the implication is that Samuele ‘Hercules” Ricci being correctly sent off was the type of thing that Gigantic, Powerful, Top of the Table Empoli needed to win the day and that his absence was the difference in the game that Empoli was already losing when he got sent off.
The red card was warranted. It was an incredibly dangerous play, but it’s position here suggests that it wasn’t – even though it absolutely was. It OBJECTIVELY was warranted. The only thing what would throw suspicion on the play was if there was an attempt to make the win illegitimate. But as we know that is nothing new for F-I.
The penalty appeal was not. There was no indication by the referee and the play continued. There probably was a VAR check just to make sure and there was no call from VAR to the referee. Despite this, the replay shows incidental contact and that the only reason the Empoli player ended up on the ground is that he threw himself there. Go back a few weeks to the Handanovic incident with his hands in the air and we see that despite F-I being the only media – English or not – outlet trying to make it a big thing… everyone agrees that it was play acting.
Conversely, if F-I were trying to be fair they would have mentioned the action going the other way, in which Alexi Sanches was tripped from behind by the same bearded fellow who was booked for grabbing his shirt earlier. No mention during the liveblog and no mention here on the march report. Only the “questionable” calls made AGAINST Inter get reported on. By the way I am confident that there was no VAR check on this play either. A professional reporter might ask why, but since there are none here it wasn’t.
Getting to the liveblog, I have been censored several dozens of times for what was considered personal attack. If one were to go back in the liveblog, we would see several personal attacks against me that were allowed. In each instance I had at least one comment not published in retort.
That there is bias at this website is objective clear. Are you going to do anything about it?
Bias for sure, like the article that mentions the Osimhen dal is under investigation but doesn’t mention the Juventus ones.