In Napoli-Inter comes the third defeat in this championship for Cristian Chivu‘s Nerazzurri. Great regret for the Milanese team, which was in excellent form and wanted to win this direct clash to take first place in the standings against the rivals coached by Antonio Conte.

As usual here on Passione Inter we try to analyze the most important takeaways from the matches of Chivu‘s team, and here are five things we learned from the Nerazzurri’s defeat in Napoli-Inter, match of the 8th round of the Serie A championship.

1) A painful defeat: it was a great opportunity to strike at a struggling Napoli, but instead the wounded beast in the corner showed its claws. Unfortunately, several limits of this Inter came to the surface, which were already known but had taken a back seat during the seven consecutive wins.

2) Offensive limits emerged: unlike Napoli, Inter missed too many chances, partly due to lack of precision like Lautaro, but also due to bad luck. The first big chance was for Bastoni, who then hit the crossbar, and then also Dumfries hit the post. On the other side, there was a defense that was too slow and not aggressive enough to play so high against a strong Napoli despite many absences.

3) However, it cannot be denied that the match was dramatically influenced by the referee. Perhaps the biggest scandal was the lack of a red card for Gilmour, but the penalty awarded to Di Lorenzo was truly unacceptable. This was the same referee of the “RETROPENSIERI”, the famous phrase uttered by Conte after an Inter-Napoli match last year. Since that strong statement by Conte a year ago, many refereeing episodes have started to go against us, often to our disadvantage with Inter not raising its voice. This match was terribly influenced by an indecent refereeing error.

4) Chivu lost it today with Conte and the referee putting the match on Napoli’s preferred ground, with defense and counterattack after taking the lead, but there was time to recover and the Nerazzurri exited the match too early. So much so that the last substitutions were made to preserve the players and not to try one last assault.

5) Yesterday’s is therefore a bad defeat, a cold shower especially because it comes in a big match and this weighs heavily on the mind when aiming for the Scudetto. However, Inter must not give up because the road is still long and it is a team full of quality.