Juventus player ratings vs Inter Milan: Mandzukic delivers Derby d’Italia win
By John Vaccaro
It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t easy, but Juventus managed to secure 3 more points against Inter on Friday.
Inter took control of the match early on and even created the most dangerous opportunity of the first half. In the 28th minute, Joao Mario played a beautiful long ball to Matteo Politano who then passed to Mauro Icardi in the box. Icardi held the ball up for Roberto Gagliardini who shot it off the far post. Perisic then wasted a half chance shortly after and Inter would end up regretting letting the match go to halftime at 0-0.
In the 66th minute, Juve made Inter pay for letting them off the hook when Joao Cancelo created space on the left wing. He crossed the ball into Mario Mandzukic at the far post and Mandzukic was just too big for his former teammate, Kwadwo Asamoah. He headed the ball past Samir Handanovic, giving Juve a 1-0 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. From there neither team really threatened to change the scoreline and Juve extended their Serie A win streak to 6 matches. It also gave them a temporary 11 point lead over Napoli and stretched their lead over Inter to 14 points.
GK: Wojciech Szczesny 6.5/10
On most days Wojciech Szczesny has a pretty easy job and the match against Inter was surprisingly no different. He was only called into action a couple of times and only made one save in the match. The other shot he had to wish. He never had a shot of saving and Juve was bailed out by the post. Other than that Szczesny handled crosses well and didn’t have issues distributing the ball from the back. This was just another day at the office for Szczesny.