Inter-Napoli 3-2: Inter's press has gone from 12 to 6.9 in three matchdays. Then in the 88th came a ball worth 0.93

The verdict, before the numbers

At San Siro, Inter came from behind to beat Napoli 3-2, with Lautaro Martínez scoring in the 91st minute. Nine points from nine, top of the table.

It was the best match of the round and also one of the few, this weekend, where the scoreboard and the pitch said the same thing. With one enormous exception, which arrives in the 88th minute.

The press is the story of the match

Let us start here, because it is the number that explains everything else.

PPDA measures how many passes you let your opponent make before going to disturb them. The lower it is, the harder you press. Last night:

Inter 6.9. Napoli 20.4.

Inter went to press Napoli after seven passes. Napoli allowed twenty. In a match between the top two in the table, that is a gap from different divisions.

And it is not an isolated night. It is a trajectory.

Chivu's Inter have pressed harder every single matchday: 12.0 against Monza, 9.8 at Cagliari, 6.9 against Napoli. Last night's figure is among the most aggressive measured anywhere in Europe this round.

Napoli have travelled in the opposite direction: 9.6 at Genoa, then 21.0 against Como and 20.4 last night. For three weeks they have been waiting.

The territorial result follows: fifteen box entries to eight, and twenty-nine shots to fifteen.

And then Inter did something extremely rare

Now the figure that makes this match different from everything else we have written about in recent days.

This weekend we have covered Newcastle coming back with two goals worth 0.08, Stuttgart scoring four from 0.51, Roma winning with two worth 0.14. A whole round of goals arriving out of nowhere.

Not Inter. Inter scored their biggest chances.

Lautaro, in the 55th, from Dimarco's recovery and cut-back: 0.79 expected goals. The biggest chance of his night. Thuram, in the 81st, header from a Carlos Augusto cross: 0.31. Lautaro, in the 91st, from an uncleared corner after Akanji's touch: 0.73.

Sum of the three goals: 1.82. They are the three heaviest shots Inter produced in ninety minutes, and all three went in.

That is not luck, it is the hardest thing there is: building real chances and then putting them away. On a weekend of impossible goals, Inter won in the most boring and most solid way available.

The overall tally: 3.78 expected goals to 2.32, expected points 2.29 to 0.55.

But in the 88th there was a ball worth 0.93

And here we have to be honest all the way, because the match came within a touch of ending differently.

At 2-2, in the 88th, Franck Zambo Anguissa found himself in front of goal with a chance worth 0.926 expected goals. Ninety-three out of a hundred. It is the biggest chance missed in the whole of Serie A this round, and one of the biggest of the season.

He put it wide.

A minute earlier, Neres had missed one worth 0.37. Three minutes later, Lautaro won the match.

So: yes, Inter deserved it. But between 3-2 and 2-3 there was one ball on which the model made Napoli favourites nine times out of ten. Anyone reading expected points as a verdict is in the wrong job: they tell you who played better, not what would have happened if that ball had gone in.

Napoli are not the team of their three points

They deserve a serious paragraph, because the easy reading ("Allegri's Napoli don't play") is wrong and the numbers contradict it.

Three matchdays: three points from 3.84 expected points. A gap of -0.84, meaning Napoli are collecting slightly less than they are worth, not far less.

And above all: thirty-nine box entries in three matches. That is the second-best figure in Serie A, behind only Roma's forty-eight. This Napoli side get into the opposition box plenty.

The problem is at the other end: thirty-two box entries conceded and five goals against in three rounds. Allegri did not dodge it afterwards: "we are paying for too many mistakes, we have conceded five goals in two matches".

Last night Napoli produced 2.32 expected goals at San Siro against the hardest-pressing team in the league. That is not the number of a side in crisis. It is the number of a side that loses matches like this 3-2.

The honest bit

Inter won the right way, and it is worth saying loudly. In a round where goals arrived from impossible positions almost everywhere, Inter converted their three best chances. It is the only way of winning that repeats.

The 6.9 press deserves attention, in both directions. It is the engine of this Inter, but it is also an athletic load that holds up in September and will be judged in December. Inter's own match report notes that intensity had dropped after the cooling break in the 25th: the substitutes reopened this match, not the starters.

And Napoli should be looked at again in a month. With these box entries and this attacking output, three points from three matchdays is less than they have shown. If they fix the defensive phase, they climb on their own.

Check for yourself. In the Meritometro you will find the verdict on every match of this round based on chances rather than results, and in the Nerd Zone you can go back through Inter-Napoli shot by shot, with the value of each attempt.