The final scoreline doesn’t tell the full story: Samp play well but slip to loss against Inter

Sampdoria dominated proceedings at San Siro this evening but were dealt three sucker punches that leave Vincenzo Montella’s men with a defeat that’s extremely difficult to take.

Lining up in a 3-4-2-1 formation, Doria began brightly by occupying the spaces well and moving the ball about impressively right from the off. Within the opening fifteen minutes, Sampdoria had come close to scoring on a couple of occasions. In the 11th minute, David Ivan made it to the byline and picked out Fabio Quagliarella, who dug out a sharp shot on the turn and drew a save from Samir Handanovic. From the resulting corner, Andrea Ranocchia rose highest against his former team-mates but couldn’t keep his header below the bar. Moments later Quagliarella came close again, shooting across goal with a fine effort.

The Blucerchiati couldn’t turn their early dominance into anything concrete, however, and were made to pay in the 23rd minute. A lapse in concentration from a corner and Danilo D’Ambrosio crept in undetected at the far post to tuck home a knock-down past Emiliano Viviano: 1-0 to Inter completely against the run of play.

Samp responded in the best way possible and in the 38th minute had a cast-iron penalty claim turned down by referee Davide Massa, despite D’Ambrosio clearly handling a Joaquin Correa shot inside the box.

There were no changes to either side at half-time and Sampdoria emerged from the tunnel at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza with the same battling spirit as the first half. They came close to the equaliser in the 51st minute, when Dodo got a flick on a Fernando set piece that went agonisingly wide.

Lady Luck clearly wasn’t favouring Samp’s cause and the second hammer blow came 12 minutes into the second half. Felipe Melo nodded on a corner for Miranda to head over the line despite Viviano’s valiant attempt to claw it away. Two well-struck set pieces and Inter were 2-0 up.

Quagliarella tried to cut the Nerazzurri lead in half straight away but couldn’t find the target with a rasping shot on his left.

Montella opted to give his players an extra boost in attack by sending on Luis Muriel for Ivan with just over 20 minutes left to play. However, the move exposed the Blucerchiati to the hosts’ albeit rare counter-attacks. In fact, Inter made it 3-0 with their first and only one of the game. Mauro Icardi picked Ranocchia’s pocket in midfield in the 73rd minute and advanced unchallenged towards Viviano’s goal before beating him with a low shot inside the far post.

Samp were out cold on the canvas without deserving to be there. Quagliarella continued to plug away manfully and was rewarded for his efforts with a superbly taken goal in injury time that sealed the 3-1 final scoreline.

Internazionale 3-1 Sampdoria (HT: 1-0)

Scorers: D’Ambrosio 23; Miranda 57, Icardi 73, Quagliarella 90+2.

Internazionale (4-2-4): Handanovic; Nagatomo, Miranda, Murillo, D’Ambrosio; F. Melo, Brozovic (Jovetic 88); Biabiany (Gnoukouri 78), Icardi, Eder (Ljajic 63), Perisic.
Subs not used: Carrizo, Berni, J. Jesus, Palacio, Santon, Zonta, Popa, Manaj.
Coach: Roberto Mancini.

Sampdoria (3-4-2-1): Viviano; Cassani, Ranocchia, Silvestre; Ivan (Muriel 68), Fernando, Soriano, Dodô; Correa (Krsticic 78), Alvarez (Christodoulopoulos 85); Quagliarella.
Subs not used: Puggioni, Brignoli, Moisander, Rodriguez, Palombo, De Silvestri, Skriniar, Cassano.
Coach: Vincenzo Montella.

Referee: Davide Massa (Imperia).
Assistants: Andrea Marzaloni (Rimini) and Giuseppe De Pinto (Bari).
Fourth official: Marco Barbirati (Ferrara).
Additional assistants: Daniele Orsato (Schio) and Riccardo Pinzani (Empoli).

Yellow cards: Ranocchia 18, Dodo 33, Brozovic 42, Miranda 50, Nagatomo 72.

Additional time: 0+3 minutes.

Pitch surface: Average condition.