Match report
Full-time: Inter 1-0 Southampton
That could barely have gone worse for Southampton. For so long a famous victory looked there for the taking but instead they leave the San Siro with nothing but a slightly sickening feeling. Inter may not be the force they one were but they still handed out a painful lesson, punishing Saints for errant finishing and a moment of slack defending. The group is anyone’s now.
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90+4 min: After tricky work by Boufal, Van Dijk tries to get off a shot at the edge of the area. It bounces off a defender to Ward-Prowse, who tries a scissors volley from the edge of the box. It goes agonisingly wide.
90+3 min: Van Dijk cops a belt in the face as he jumps for a ball. As he’s on the ground he kicks out Beckham-style at the offender and is mighty lucky that he doesn’t make contact.
90+2 min: Inter are piling sandbags around their box as Southampton pour forward ...
90 min: Southampton will have at least five more minutes to equalise.
89 min: What a save by Handanovic! From a corner Austin challenged for the ball and then it bounced down right in front of him, just four yards from goal. He tried to poke it into the net but the keeper threw himself at it and made a brilliant reflex save!
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88 min: Corner for Southampton after a long-range shot by Romeu is deflected wide. Ward-Prowse delivers with customary precision, and Van Dijk’s downward header is cleared off the line for another corner.
Inter substitution: Perisic on, Eder off.
85 min: Hojbjerg booked for a dumb foul as he tried to make up for letting the ball run away from him.
82 min: Another perfect delivery by Ward-Prowse, who drops a freekick from the left on to the foot of VAn Dijk, who’s eight yards out, right in front of goal and unattended by any defenders! And he shoots straight at Handanovic, who saves with his feet. That a terrible miss by a fabulous player, to add to the one he perpetrated against Hapoel Beer Sheva. Baffling really.
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Inter substitution: Ansaldi on, Candreva off.
Southampton substitution: Davis on, Rodriguez off. Positive change, that. Rodriguez looked jaded and Davis can provide some creative savviness.
RED CARD
Brozovic makes a ludicrous tackle for a player on a yellow card, sliding through the back of Hojberg to win the ball in midfield. The ref issues the inevitable second yellow and off trudges the offender. Now, can Southampton take advantage?
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76 min: Boufal is playing mainly off the left at the moment, in case you’re wondering.
Southampton substitution: Tadic off, Boufal on for his first appearance. Can he introduce himself with style?
73 min: A bewitching turn by Icardi takes out Van Dijk. The striker tries to cap that with a goal but his shot is deflected wide.
72 min: Candreva swings an inviting cross into the Southampton box from the right. It’s fractionally too long for Icardi. Southampton needed to take back the initiative here.
70 min: The mood among the few home fans has improved and Inter are playing with a tad more zest. Southampton, not so much. McQueen concedes a corner with a stay back-header. Fortunately for him, the corner yields nothing.
GOAL! Inter 1-0 Southampton (Candreva 67)
Well, that was impeccable timing! Santon cut a cross back from the left and Candreva drifted into the box unnoticed by anyone in stripes, including Van Dijk. He swept the ball first-time into the net and wheeled off in celebration! They’ve landed that sucker punch we warned about. That’s the first goal from open play that Saints have conceded in eight matches.
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66 min: Virgil Van Dijk is a marvel. Nearly everything he does is pure class. What a feat it was by Southampton to replace Toby Alderweireld so seamlessly. And what folly by other clubs not to pay attention to Scottish football.
63 min: The game is going through a scruffy spell, which suits Inter.
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60 min: Brozovic booked for a spiteful late tackle on Austin. He could easily have avoided the player as he slid in but lifted his leg to make sure he caught him.
58 min: Fine pass by Gnoukouri to reward a clever run by Icardi. But Yoshida makes an equally fine block to spare Forster from having to make his first save of the night.
57 min: Southampton are bossing this. They’ll be dismayed if they don’t win. Even more so if they’re done by a sucker punch, which is all Inter took capable of. These one-time giants really playing like tiddlers.
55 min: Rodriguez pounces on a breaking ball and plays it first time through to Austin, who lets fly from 20 yards. Inches wide!
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53 min: Icardi does nothing to endear himself to the home fans, as he takes a pass from Eder and blazes high and wide from 16 yards.
51 min: Rodriguez nods the ball into the net from a Tadic corner and 7,000 travelling fans go bonkers! But their celebrations are aborted when they realise the ref had whistled for a (non-existent) foul.
50 min: Superb pass by Van Dijk, bisecting Inter’s rearguard and playing the ball into the path of McQueen. who has been full of enterprise all night. But the left-back’s cross didn’t match the buildup.
47 min: Cute ball down the left by McQueen. Long sped on to it before going down under a tackle by Miranda. And the bad news is that Long seems to have suffered a hamstring injury. On comes Austin in his place. That, at least, should improve Saints’ finishing.
46 min: No personnel changes during the break.
Half-time: Inter 0-0 Southampton
My guess is Puel won’t be full of cheer during the break. He’ll know his team should be in front. They were in charge for most of that half and created several clear chances, especially through Martins and Tadic down the right, but they have failed to finish. Austin will be introduced soon, I’ll wager. Maybe the lesser-spotted Boufal, too.
43 min: Brozovic cuts in-field and tries a shot from 20 yards. It’s blocked by Romeu- who else? The corner is cleared by Van Dijk - who else?
41 min: Eder tries to rouse the smattering of home fans with a decent low shot from distance. It whizzes just wide.
40 min: After a sad bout of mundane passing, Inter inevitably lose the ball. It’s becoming clear why their stadium is much less than half full.
38 min: Martina and Tadic combine yet again down the right. Long does brilliantly to flick on the ensuing cross ... and Rodriguez stretches to try to poke it into the net at the back post but just can’t get there.
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36 min: Two defenders converge on the dancing Tadic and shove him to the ground right in front of the linesman. Throw-in, reckons the linesman. Was his view obscured by the fresh air?
33 min: Inter get a sniff on the counter. But Eder has to wait for support and, when it eventually arrives, his cross is cut out by Yoshida.
31 min: Another Saints chance, another miss! Martina, who’s continually free down the right, cracks one wide from just inside the box.
29 min: Another chance missed by Southampton. This time it was Ward-Prowse, who leaned back and lifted a shot over from 18 yards after being teed up by Martina. Finishing has been a problem for Saints all season - long than that, in fact - and it would be a shame if it cost them tonight. Because in all other respects they are much better than this Inter shower.
28 min: Martina hoofs the ball forward following an Inter attack. Rodriguez collects it and bounds forward. McQueen provides support on the left. Rodriguez gives and goes. McQueen charges forward and then pings in a good cross. Handanovic gets a touch to it and deflects it on to the face of Rodriguez, who had slid in to try to get a touch with his feet. The ball bounces of the Saints’ player’s head and towards the goal! But it’s cleared off the line.
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26 min: This Inter side, to be fair, are just a crap tribute act.
23 min: Ward-Prowse curls in a wonderful freekick but, inexplicably, none of his team-mates saw it coming. If someone had mad an appropriate move to meet it, a goal was there for the taking. Only Charlie Austin has those instincts, however, and he’s parked on the bench.
22 min: More polished play by Southampton. A patient, progressive move culminates with Tadic throwing some shapes on the right and then chipping a dangerous cross to the back post. Inter defend well. But Southampton will be back - they’ve been significantly better than the hot so far.
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19 min: Hojbjerg relieves Candreva of possession in midfield and strides forward. He plays the ball wide to Martins, who clips a nice cross over to the back post. Long jumps high, as usual, and heads into the keeper’s arms. But there’d have been no goal even if the ball had found the net because the ref spotted a push by Long.
17 min: A promising Saints move fizzles out when Hojbjerg plays a stray pass. That’s not like him. That’s several times now, though, that Saints have got into good positions but failed to see the move through.
14 min: Southampton have been the better side so far: more coherent, bolder and even more determined. “As a Portsmouth fan whose first love affair with a foreign team was the Inter Milan of the mid-2000s - Adriano in his prime, Javier Zanetti, Vieri, Cambiasso, Toldo, and the rest - there’s no prizes for guessing who I’m backing tonight,” confesses Matt Loten. “Unfortunately, even having made a raft of changes, I can see a Southampton victory on the horizon. What on earth happened to the glorious Inter side that dominated Serie A and, briefly, Europe under Jose Mourinho? Rafa made a convenient scapegoat, but to move on Sneijder, Milito, Eto’o, Chivu and Maicon and replace them all with pale imitations was a rebuilding effort of spectacular inadequacy.”
11 min: After a foul on Romeu, the lion of Southampton’s midfield, Tadic tries to score with a freekick from 30 yards at the San Siro. That’s taking fantasy too far, and his shot didn’t even make it past the wall.
8 min: Aie! A heavy touch by Rodriguez kills a great chance for Southampton. The ball broke to the forward and he ran into the left-hand side of the box and had the option of centring for Tadic or sidestepping the last defender and shooting. But one hefty touch gave the defender an opportunity to intervene and that’s what he did. Rodriguez, let’s remember, is still trying to regain his sharpness after a harrowing run of injuries.
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7 min: Hojbjerg does brilliantly to win possession in midfield and then fizzes a pass down the right to Tadic, who rolls Murillo and starts scampering towards the box ... until the ref pulls him back for fouling Murilla.
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4 min: Trouble afoot for Southampton! There really shouldn’t have been, but Martina didn’t look before playing a back pass from the right-back area and offered a chance for Icardi. The striker beat Forster to the ball but the goalkeeper stayed on his feet and forced the striker out of play. A reprieve for Martina.
2 min: Southampton have started in the way Puel has introduced, dominating possession but not just for the hell of it: they’re a-probin’ with pace. And their fans are having a loud party. It seems like there’s only one team at the San Siro in these very early stages.
1 min: Southampton kick off.
The teams come together for an anti-racism promotional photo and an opportunity, perhaps, for the Inter players to ask Virgil Van Dijk and Shane Long for autographs.
Here they come, Inter and Southampton march out together at the San Siro. The stadium, admittedly, looks less than a half-full but you can sure hear the travelling fans, who are crooning joyfully about the Saints going marching in. The Nerrazzuri are in their classic black and blue gear, while Southampton are in their almost as classic red and white stripes but with red shorts.
Teams
Inter: Handanovic; Nagayomo, Miranda, Murillo, Santon; Gnoukouri, Medel, Brozovic; Candreva, Icardi, Eder
Subs: Carrizo, Palacio, Ansaldi Banega, D’ambrosio, Perisic, Yao
Southampton: Forster; Martina, Yoshida, Van Dijk, McQueen; Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Hojbjerg; Rodriguez, Long, Tadic
Subs: McCarthy, Clasie, Fonte, Davis, Austin, Boufal, Stephens
Referee: G Mazelka (Lithuania)
So Puel has churned again: he’s made five changes to the lineup that overwhelmed Burnley on Sunday. Charlie Austin drops to the bench despite scoring seven goals in his last six matches but Shane Long is a fine man for the counter-attack so the omission of Jose Fonte from central defence is a more dicey call, with Maya Yoshida being the replacement. For smiles, look at left-back: Sam McQueen, who came on as a sub against Burnley after the injury to Matt Targett, gets his first senior start – at the San Siro, if you please! Equally heartening, Sofiane Boufal is on the bench so Saints fans may finally get a look at their £16m summer signing from Lille. As for Inter, Icardi starts - who knows what the locals will make of that?
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to the rest of your lives or, to be precise, an event that Southampton fans will be talking about forever more no matter how many times you ask them to pipe down. Quite right, too. This time six years ago Southampton were picking themselves up from a 2-0 League One defeat to Huddersfield Town while Inter were still high on winning Serie A and the Champions League. Now the clubs meet as equals. In fact, Southampton could even claim to be superior, as they are top of Europa League Group K with four points from two matches while Inter are bottom with nothing to their name but, well, a name. But what a name.
Internazionale, one of the most prestigious clubs on the planet, 18 times champions of Italy, three times champions of Europe and hallowed canvass of men who have enriched sporting history, from managers such as Helenio Herrera, Giovanni Trappatoni and - drum roll please - Roy Hodgson to players such as Giacinto Fachetti, Lothar Matthaus and Luis Suarez (the Spanish genius rather than the Uruguayan one). Southampton’s trophy cabinet, by contrast, contains one FA Cup, one Johnston’s Paint Trophy and a well thumbed programme from the 1992 Zenith Data Systems jamboree. OK, so they’ve duelled with a couple of European heavyweights before – notably when they lost narrowly to a Hamburg side that was in the fading stages of Ernst Happel’s reign – but this match, against this club in this venue, feels bigger than anything the club has ever experienced on the international stage. Word is that around 7,000 Saints fans have headed to San Siro where at this very moment they are quivering with the giddy glee of stoners at Woodstock. This will go down in history.
And who’s to say it won’t go down as a famous Saints win? Inter are struggling under Frank de Boer while Southampton have found a nice groove under Claude Puel, who can point to an encouraging precedent: ten years ago his Lille team beat AC Milan 2-0 to become the first French side to win at the San Siro. Puel’s got Southampton playing attractively and effectively, with muscle, sharpness and unpredictable passing patterns. He has chopped and changed his team successfully but must surely start his strongest available lineup here, which, alas, will not include his first-choice full-backs because of injuries. We’ll bring you news of the team selections as soon as we get it. If Inter start with Mauro Icardi, that’ll add extra spice to the atmosphere, though let’s hope all stupidity is kept in check. Tonight, as Debbie Harry once implored, make it magnificent.
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