Inter Embrace Chaos as Chivu Backs Martinez

Inter are playing with fire. And they seem to like the heat.

For the second straight Serie A home match, the champions dug themselves into a 2-0 hole, this time against Udinese, echoing the wild comeback they staged against Napoli. The San Siro has turned into a theatre of jeopardy, with Inter oscillating between brilliance and vulnerability inside the same 90 minutes.

Cristian Chivu did not try to disguise the chaos. He embraced it.

"These are our qualities and what we know how to do. We can score a lot of goals and keep a high level," he told Sky Sport Italia, before admitting the first phase of the game had gone badly wrong. Inter started flat, Udinese pounced, and the Nerazzurri paid for what Chivu called a lack of "energy" in the opening 25 minutes.

They were sloppy. Udinese were sharp. The punishment was swift.

But the reaction came, as it so often does with this team. "We stayed in the game, didn’t want to lose, and I am pleased with that," Chivu said. The response has become part of Inter’s identity: concede, wobble, then surge back with a fury that few sides in Italy can match.

Goals, gaps, and a coach who accepts the risk

The numbers tell the story of a side that refuses to play safe. Inter have smashed in 14 goals in their first four league games, the most prolific attack in the country. At the other end, they have shipped eight. It is not the profile of a dominant, suffocating champion; it is the profile of a side that plays on the edge.

Chivu is not hiding behind the statistics. He is leaning into them.

"There is no perfect team, never seen in my career," he said. Inter, he insists, will not abandon their identity. The team pushes high, commits bodies forward, and lives with the consequences. With that aggression comes space for opponents to counter, and Chivu accepts that as the cost of doing business.

"If I don't say I'm worried, I'm not a coach," he admitted when asked about the defensive issues. Then came the line that sums up his philosophy: "This is today's football, with the intensity we put in, we take some risks because we want to play this style of play, we bring a lot of men into possession and when we lose the ball we expose ourselves to risks."

The example he chose was telling. On Nicolò Barella’s goal, Inter’s counter-press snapped into place, suffocating Udinese’s attempt to break out. The risk was there, but so was the reward. "The counter-pressing on Barella's goal was done well," Chivu noted. "We're not perfect, we don't even want to be and we have to keep working, because the season is long and there are things we need to work on."

This is not a coach chasing sterile control. It is a coach betting that his team’s intensity and attacking talent will outweigh the damage at the back.

Martinez under fire, Chivu draws a line

The wild scorelines have inevitably dragged the goalkeeper into the spotlight. This time, the scrutiny has landed on Josep "Pepo" Martinez, with echoes of the criticism that followed Yann Sommer last season.

Chivu has had enough of that narrative.

"Last year Sommer was the problem and you pointed it out immediately, now it's Pepo Martinez," he snapped. The Inter coach mounted a fierce defence of his current No. 1 and, more broadly, of his entire goalkeeping group.

"I will defend him to the death, just like [Ivan] Provedel or others. I kindly ask you not to always make headlines about our goalkeepers. We don't have problems with goalkeepers," he insisted. The cycle, in his eyes, is predictable: last season it was Sommer under the microscope, now it is Martinez, with Provedel waiting in the wings and already framed as the next solution.

"Last year you kept hammering on about Sommer and Pepo was wanted. Today it's Pepo because Ivan is wanted. Who is a great goalkeeper and will have his chance. But not out of pity, but because they deserve it. Everyone makes mistakes and so do I," Chivu said.

The message was clear. Inter’s issues are collective, born of a bold style, not a crisis in goal. Martinez will not be sacrificed to appease the noise.

A perfect-record showdown in Rome

There is no time to breathe. No soft landing. Inter now march toward a heavyweight clash with Gian Piero Gasperini’s Roma at the Stadio Olimpico, a fixture that already feels like a statement game in the Scudetto race.

Both sides have taken maximum points from their first four league outings. Both have momentum. Both want to set the tone before the international break.

"Against Roma it is an important match before the break also because then I will be left with three players," Chivu said, a nod to the exodus of internationals that will strip his training ground bare. The schedule is relentless, the margins thin, and the squad is already feeling the strain.

Hakan Calhanoglu is a major doubt with a muscle strain in his adductor. John Stones is also in serious question after limping off around the hour mark. Two pillars of Inter’s structure, both uncertain for a trip that could shape the early narrative of the season.

Chivu will not change his principles for Roma. He will go to the Olimpico with the same high-risk, high-reward football, the same faith in his goalkeeper, the same acceptance that perfection is a myth.

Inter are not tidy. They are not tranquil. They are something more dangerous than that: a champion side willing to live on the edge while the rest of Serie A watches to see whether this tightrope act ends in glory or a fall.