Spezia vs Inter Milan

Inter Milan’s quest to defend the Serie A title for the first time in over a decade continues this weekend away to Spezia at the Stadio Alberto Picco.

Spezia’s maiden goalless draw of the season away to Empoli last time out kept Thiago Motta’s team a comfortable 11 points clear of the relegation territory. Now back at home, Spezia will be looking to maintain their rich vein of form at Alberto Picco, having gone from back-to-back Serie A home defeats to consecutive victories ‘to nil.’ Indeed, the ‘Aquilotti’ have preserved clean sheets in their last two Serie A outings and could make it three shutouts on the trot for the first time in the club’s top-flight history. Yet, entertainment has been relatively sparse in Spezia’s recent home league fixtures, as four of their last five at Alberto Picco have seen one of the sides fail to get on the scoresheet in matches garnering under 2.5 total goals.

Inter took advantage of their title rivals’ mistakes last weekend to reignite their Scudetto bid and whittle down the gap on table-topping AC Milan to a point, courtesy of a 2-0 home triumph over mid-table Hellas Verona. Another seemingly straightforward task is awaiting the defending Italian champions, as they’ve won all but one of their five previous competitive meetings with Spezia (D1) by an aggregate score of 13-3. Moreover, Simone Inzaghi’s men have been ruthless against sides from the bottom half of the table this season, averaging a league-high 2.6 points per such fixture (36 points from 14 matches). Inzaghi has based his Inter tactics on a rock-solid defense that has registered 14 Serie A clean sheets in 31 games, already as many as in the entirety of the last season.