Venezia 0-2 Inter: Nerazzurri move second on 22 points, Venezia stay bottom

5 previous meetings with Venezia, 5 Inter wins. No draws, no Venezia victories, 13 goals in total. Tonight's 0-2 slots into a run that the numbers were already telling us about.

A table with no room for doubt

Venezia are 20th out of 20 with 3 points from 8 games: 1 win, 7 defeats, 6 goals scored and 17 conceded. Inter are second with 22 points: 7 wins, 1 draw, no defeats, 23 goals scored and 10 conceded. These are two sides at opposite ends of the table. The standings are the post-match ones, so they already include this result.

Form, most recent first

Venezia came in having lost 4 of their last 5 in Serie A: 0-1 at Genoa, then 1-3 at Atalanta, 0-2 against Lazio and 2-4 against Fiorentina. In between came their only bright spot: a 1-0 win over Napoli. Across those 5 games: 4 goals scored, 10 conceded.

Inter's last 5 in the league and the Champions League read 4 wins and 1 defeat, the 3-4 against Club Brugge. Across those games they scored 12 and conceded 6. On 2 occasions out of 5, against Shakhtar Donetsk and Parma, they had kept a clean sheet.

That is the stat that sets tonight apart. Inter have conceded 10 goals in 8 league games, this one included: this is not a defence that is always watertight. Tonight it was, against an attack that has managed 6 goals in 8 games.

Who scores for Inter

In Inter's Serie A scoring charts, M. Thuram has 5 goals and 2 assists. Lautaro Martínez has 4 goals and no assists. Together that is 9 of the Nerazzurri's 23 league goals. The weight of the pair in the season's tally is clear: nearly 2 in every 5 goals go through them.

What the result tells us

The verdict is no surprise, and it offers no excuses. A team that wins 7 games out of 8 beats the bottom side, who have lost 7 out of 8, in line with 5 previous meetings that were all one-sided. The value lies in the tidiness: 2 goals scored, 0 conceded.

For Venezia the picture remains grim: 3 points, 17 goals conceded, only 1 win this season. The 1-0 against Napoli on 17 October remains the exception, not the rule.

What to watch in the coming days

2 things to watch. First: whether Inter confirm the defensive solidity shown tonight, after the 10 goals conceded in the first 8 rounds. Second: whether Venezia find a way to score, after the 0-1 at Genoa and tonight's 0-2. That is 2 games without a goal.