Napoli and Inter face off for the Serie A title

Hello friends, this is your Friday grab bag. Before we get going, I have a small request:

It would help us a lot when it comes to planning future content and talking to potential partners to hear what you enjoy about The Transfer Flow. So if you’re enjoying the newsletter (or podcast), reply to this email with a message detailing what you like about us. Thanks a bunch! —KM

The Premier League is off this weekend for the FA Cup, which I usually find to be a mild disappointment in the 5th round. It’s great in the 3rd round when there’s a ton of games and potential for lower-league teams to knock off giants, but not when there are only 8 matches. Thankfully, there’s simply something much better on the continent to watch: Napoli vs. Inter Milan.

Not only are these two teams on top of Serie A, but they’re also remarkably similar stylistically. Napoli manager Antonio Conte and Inter boss Simone Inzaghi both prefer 3-5-2 shapes, but have been very adaptable recently when available personnel or the match situation called for something different.

They’re both focused on shape over attacking fluidity, and both teams’ defenses are outstanding. Forget all this modern pressing and PPDA crap, just make yourself hard to break down. Napoli and Inter don’t particularly care if their opponents have the ball as long as they’re not moving it into the most dangerous areas.

Despite the similar philosophies, Inter’s attack has been the much better one. This isn’t just a post-Kvara slump either; Napoli have been significantly overperforming their xG all season. They could really use someone next to Lukaku who’s great at dribbling and/or running in behind.

Napoli had a decent lead in the scudetto race a month ago, but they’ve experienced a downturn in form, or regression to the mean, depending on who you ask. They haven’t won in their last 4 games, and were defeated last week by Como. Inter also have a couple of losses this month, but are coming off a win over Genoa.

If Napoli are going to turn around their bad form and retake control of the scudetto race, they’re going to need to get more out of their marquee striker signing, Romelu Lukaku. He started hot for his new club, but he’s scored just one non-penalty goal since the new year, and only has 6 on the season. And that’s overperforming his xG — Lukaku just isn’t getting shots. He’s also not winning aerials or dribbling by people anymore.

By comparison, his replacement at Inter is a strong all-around presence. Marcus Thuram (who has a minor injury and might be limited in this game), is having an excellent season for Inter.

This is, perhaps, unfair on Lukaku. He doesn’t have anyone with the passing quality of Inter left center back Alessandro Bastoni or central midfielder Hakan Çalhanoğlu to pass him the ball. His primary attacking co-stars have been sold (Kvara) and injured (David Neres), respectively. But when you pay €30m and huge wages on a 3-year contract for a 31-year-old, you’re expecting them to be a star.

These look like similarly styled and similarly great defensive teams, but there’s no doubt that Inter have the better passers and goal-scorers. The Nerazzurri should be pretty significant favorites in a mirrored tactical matchup. Napoli will need their best performance of the season to go back to the top of the table.

Stuttgart vs. Bayern Munich — The Bundesliga title race is effectively over, but Stuttgart are good enough to threaten Bayern, who might be rotating ahead of Champions League.

Atlético Madrid vs. Athletic Bilbao — Athletic look like strong favorites for top 4 in Spain, and Atléti are still only 1 point off the top.

PSG vs. Lille — If you want to see if your favorite club should be trying to sign Jonathan David, or if you like watching No. 10s try to play right back.

Newcastle vs. Brighton — Probably the highest quality FA Cup matchup, and looking at who’s left, two teams I think should really try to win it.

AC Milan vs. Lazio — I thought I’d provide a note on a second Serie A game, since obviously I’m recommending you watch the other one mentioned up top. Milan have lost two in a row and are down to 8th. They might be going full meltdown mode.

Neel Shelat at Analytics FC digs into how player and coach transfers between clubs work at City Football Group. You can hear Neel regularly on our podcast.

Jake Entwistle at Scouted is an ice hockey writer now because he’s talking about power forwards. Target striker Eric Lindros would have gone crazy.

Mark Thompson at Get Goalside wrote about the advances, or lack thereof, in standardization and interoperability between data providers.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes at The Cutback thought England women’s win over Spain was a big step forward.

Meg Linehan and Jeff Reuter at The Athletic break down the new USWNT players who impressed at SheBelieves Cup, and the ones that didn’t.

Kurosh Moghtader at Total Football Analysis has a look at how Cesc Fabregas is getting on at Como in Serie A.

Kieron O’Connor at Swiss Ramble details why Man United are cutting costs. A detail I’d missed before now: They’re raising parking prices for disabled fans. Cartoon villain stuff.

John Brewin at The Guardian looks at the history between Preston and Burnley in the 50s and 60s ahead of their FA Cup clash.

Mark Ogden at ESPN went to Greenland to learn about their campaign to join CONCACAF and compete internationally against North American teams.

Sam Parry at Not The Top 20 argues against letting nostalgia having too much influence on football.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”