Inter's Serie A Journey: Thrilling Chaos and Challenges
Inter’s wild Serie A ride shows no sign of slowing. Once again, the champions fell 2-0 behind at San Siro. Once again, they clawed their way back, turning a flat, anxious evening into another chaotic goal-fest that felt more like a boxing match than a league game.
It was Napoli all over again. Same script, same jeopardy, same furious response.
Cristian Chivu didn’t complain about the madness. He almost welcomed it.
“These are our qualities and what we know how to do. We can score a lot of goals and keep a high level,” he told Sky Sport Italia, before admitting the opening spell had gone badly wrong. Inter’s first 25 minutes were sluggish, the energy off, the attitude punished. Udinese sensed it and struck. Inter paid for it.
The reaction, though, pleased him. “We stayed in the game, didn’t want to lose, and I am pleased with that,” he said. That refusal to accept defeat is starting to define this side as much as any tactical blueprint.
Goals everywhere, control nowhere
Inter are tearing through Serie A defences. Four games, 14 goals. No one in Italy is scoring at that rate.
But there’s a price.
Eight goals conceded in the same stretch underline the other side of Chivu’s project. This is not the cold, suffocating control of a champion easing through the calendar. It’s something looser, more exposed, and far more volatile.
Chivu doesn’t pretend otherwise. He calls it what it is: a work in progress, built on risk.
He knows that when Inter flood forward, they leave grass behind them. He accepts that the way they attack – with numbers, with aggression, with constant movement – naturally opens the door to counter-attacks. For him, that’s not a flaw to be erased, but a consequence of the football he wants.
“There is no perfect team, never seen in my career,” he said. The aim, instead, is to protect the identity of the group – its “human values” and principles – while living with the idea that some nights will be wild and some mistakes will be costly. The chaos is not accidental. It’s almost baked in.
Living with the risk
Chivu didn’t sugarcoat his defensive concerns.
“If I don't say I'm worried, I'm not a coach,” he admitted. With the intensity Inter pour into games, they willingly walk a tightrope. They push men into possession, they commit bodies high, and when they lose the ball, they are bare and vulnerable.
They accept it. They also work like hell to fix it.
He pointed to the counter-pressing on Nicolò Barella’s goal as a glimpse of how this version of Inter wants to handle that risk: lose it, win it back instantly, suffocate the break at source. “We’re not perfect, we don’t even want to be and we have to keep working, because the season is long and there are things we need to work on,” Chivu said.
That line matters. He is not chasing an impossible ideal of defensive perfection. He is chasing balance within a style that demands bravery on the ball and aggression without it. The mistakes, for now, are part of the journey.
Martinez under fire, Chivu on the front foot
The noise around Inter’s goalkeepers has become a seasonal ritual in Italy. Last year, Yann Sommer carried the label of “problem” almost from the moment he arrived. Now the spotlight has swung onto Josep “Pepo” Martinez.
Chivu has had enough of it.
“Last year Sommer was the problem and you pointed it out immediately, now it's Pepo Martinez. I will defend him to the death, just like [Ivan] Provedel or others,” he snapped, making it clear the dressing room will not entertain a goalkeeper soap opera every autumn.
He pushed back hard against the idea of a crisis between the posts. “We don't have problems with goalkeepers,” he insisted. Martinez was wanted by the club. Provedel, he reminded everyone, is also “a great goalkeeper and will have his chance. But not out of pity, but because they deserve it. Everyone makes mistakes and so do I.”
The message was unmistakable: selection at Inter is a meritocracy, not a reaction to headlines. Chivu will not hang his goalkeeper out to dry just because the narrative demands a scapegoat.
Scudetto stakes rise in Rome
There is no time to breathe. No gentle reset. Inter now march into a showdown that already feels like a marker for the Scudetto race.
Gian Piero Gasperini’s Roma await at the Stadio Olimpico, and both teams arrive with perfect records after four rounds. It’s early, but the implications are obvious. A statement win in Rome can tilt the mood of a season. A defeat can plant doubt.
Complicating matters, Inter’s injury list is growing at the worst possible moment. Hakan Calhanoglu is battling an adductor strain and remains a serious doubt. John Stones is also in trouble after limping off around the hour mark, another key piece whose availability hangs in the balance.
“Against Roma it is an important match before the break also because then I will be left with three players,” Chivu noted, half-joking about the international exodus but fully aware of the strain on his squad. He knows he must navigate a heavyweight clash, then watch most of his team scatter across the globe.
Still, he refused to sound defeated. “We will continue like this, because this is the status of this group and we will try to improve along the way,” he said.
Inter are not flawless. They are not calm. They are not safe. They are dangerous, thrilling, and walking a line that could lead to glory or heartache.
Rome will tell them which way the balance is starting to tilt.
