Last month it was confirmed on Sky Sports’ website that Inter Milan had won the race to sign Sampdoria starlet Mauro Icardi. The graduate of Barcelona’s famous ‘La Masia’ has had a fine season at the Blucerchiati and it was believed Premier League clubs including Manchester City were interested in his signature as well as Inter. With Inter’s current crisis, albeit down to an extensive injury list, a new striker would be a welcome acquisition for the Nerazzurri this summer, especially one of Icardi’s talents.
He is Sampdoria’s top goalscorer in the league this season with 10 goals despite spending a lot of the first quarter of the campaign on the bench. His goal in the derby against Genoa was when Delio Rossi saw what a talent he was and decided to make him one of his first choice strikers. He then started 2013 off with a brace in Turin against Juventus in Sampdoria’s famous 2-1 victory. Icardi’s most impressive showing this season was against lowly Pescara where he bagged four goals with three of them coming in the space of 15 minutes.
However, Icardi has been criticised for being lazy at times this season. This argument is backed up by his poor passing accuracy of 66% and his duels success of just 37%. Icardi will have to improve his ball retention and will have to win more duels than that if he is to be a success at a club like Inter Milan who tend to have a lot more of the ball than Sampdoria do.
Icardi has shown that he has the potential to be a top class striker, he just needs to improve on his ability to keep the ball and when challenging for the ball in the air. Inter Milan could have done with Icardi in the run in as they picked up an unprecedented level of injuries which saw them drop to a final position of 9th place in Serie A. Next season, they will have the Argentine youngster and my bet is that he will make a huge impression at the San Siro.