The big chance. Inter without Lautaro. Sanchez more than Arnautovic with the goal of renewal

Inter-Cagliari will be played without the usual Nerazzurri captain. Lautaro Martinez is in fact disqualified: he energetically stopped an opponent launching a counterattack at the end of the match against Udinese and this earned him a yellow card from the referee. He was on a warning, he will miss Sunday's match and thus will not risk not being there for the derby on 22 April when, if Inter beat Cagliari, it will be a championship match point. An opportunity to be exploited for those who, behind the Argentine and Thuram, found very little space. Unlike last year, when especially in key moments Inzaghi alternated his forwards a lot, this season the hierarchies are defined. It therefore became very complicated to find space for both Marko Arnautovic (who also had to deal with various physical problems) and Alexis Sanchez.

The Austrian has long been the first alternative, now the Chilean is certainly more so, who has had practically no muscle stops and boasts numbers equal to those of the Austrian having played less. In fact, they have four goals and three assists on the season. They have partially straightened out their statistics, but their permanence for next year remains in the balance also because in Europe (see double comparison with Atletico) they suffered ups and downs when the two starters ran into some difficulties . Even more so, they need to exploit all the opportunities, starting from Sunday's in which the Chilean should start. Sanchez is closer to leaving in the summer for purely contractual reasons: he signed last summer for just one season and the management has already secured another striker on a free transfer, Mehdi Taremi. In this respect Arnautovic is more "protected". His agreement is for two years, until 2025 he can decide to stay where he is, regardless of what the offers are and how the club responds. The Austrian moved heaven and earth to move from Bologna to Milan when he learned of Inter's offer. He looked like he could have a place in the sun alongside Lautaro, given Thuram's difficulties in pre-season. Instead, the Frenchman put in the turbo once the real season began and the Austrian was lost among bad tests due to late fitness and fragility of his muscles. The specter of Gudmundsson hovers over his head, who the Nerazzurri transfer men evaluate regardless of who leaves. It is logical that the first concern will be to sort out any redundancies, the younger ones like the two Espositos and the less useful players in terms of quality-price ratio in the balance sheet, primarily Correa who, barring any big surprises, will return after the loan to Olympique Marseille . To buy the Icelandic, no less than forty million is needed, work will be done on the compensations and on the player's willingness to take a step forward, but the undertaking is made complicated by the extraordinary season of the rossoblu, at the top in Serie A for goals, assists , successful dribbles.

If you look at the characteristics, the two possible connections are very close to the two possible outputs. Taremi is a center forward who scores and has great technical skills with which he makes the team move, a model of Arnautovic. Gudmundsson is a very skilled second striker when he places himself between the lines, as Sanchez has been playing in recent weeks, especially in the final stages of the match in which Inter must score and Inzaghi risks the Chilean with two other attackers (Udine teaches). Anagraphically, the Austrian will turn 35 on April 19th and his current teammate has already turned 32. The Iranian, who turns 27 in July, and the Icelandic, turns XNUMX in June, are also more attractive from a future perspective.