15 goals in just four games - How Inter replaced Lukaku so quickly
Stefan Bienkowski
- Updated: 18 Sept 2021 20:21 BST
- 7 min read
Inter’s impressive start to the new season continued on Saturday when the club demolished Bologna in a 6-1 win at the San Siro.
Fans feared the worst for their beloved club over the summer when they lost Romelu Lukaku, Achraf Hakimi and even manager Antonio Conte but it seems as though new coach Simone Inzaghi knows exactly what he’s doing.
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The result on Saturday was Inter’s third win from their first four league matches and saw the side move top of the league table ahead of Sunday’s matches.
So how have Inter and their new manager found a way to replace Lukaku, a striker that scored an incredible 30 goals and 10 assists for the club last season and has continued his rich vein of form for Chelsea?
Inter signed proven goalscorers
How Inter have replaced their towering striker was perfectly illustrated in Saturday’s fantastic result, with two of the six goals coming from new striker Edin Dzeko.
The former Manchester City talisman was brought to the club as proven experience in the summer and it has already begun to pay dividends, with Dzeko now having three goals to his name in just five appearances.
Similarly, another striker who joined the club in the summer was Joaquin Correa from Lazio and he too has managed to bag two goals in just three games. Add to that the already proven clinical technique of Lautaro Martinez - who has three goals in four games - and it’s clear to see that the Italian champions have more than enough firepower up front.
They’ve also added creativity to the team
While Inter have signed like-for-like replacements for Lukaku, they’ve also added more creativity to the squad this season and as a result the Italian side have rarely struggled to create chances for the new players up front.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Hakan Calhanoglu, who made the move across the city from Milan in the summer. In his first four games for Inter he’s already bagged a goal and assist, not to mention his ability to create something from nothing in set-piece situations.
Another new playmaker that arrived this summer is right wing-back Denzel Dumfries, who joined the club from PSV as a direct replacement for Achraf Hakimi and to the delight of Inter fans the Holland international was on hand to set up the opening goal in Saturday’s win.
