Inter’s midweek blues got worse after their defeat at home to Club Brugge in the Champions League, with Lautaro Martínez now set for weeks on the sidelines after scoring a brace against the Belgian giants. While they did manage to go past Bologna, there is a chance the Argentine will be missed.
The Nerazzurri captain picked up a strain in his left hanstring, which medical tests revealed the following day. While the club haven’t provided an exact return date, La Gazzetta dello Sport are expecting the 29-year-old to sit out through next month’s international break, with Inter’s trip to Atalanta later in the month being considered his next potential outing.
This is a tough fixture run-in for Inter to brace without their captain and star striker, as they have Champions League fixtures against Shakhtar and Feyenoord during this period, as well as key league matches against Milan and Como, putting massive pressure on their grip at the top of the Serie A summit.
In the here and now, unless there are more injuries, Inter should be able to pull through. Pio Esposito and Marcus Thuram have already featured together upfront, with the former in particular attracting attention through his performances for both Inter and Italy early in the season. Thuram will take over the role of senior forward in Lautaro’s absence, while Ange-Yoan Bonny is another option; the Ivorian hasn’t set the world alight since move from Parma last summer, but now he could get more minutes.
It’s not the short-term need for a fix, though. A hamstring strain for a player late in his 20s strongly indicate that minutes are catching up with Martínez, who has been a regular in Inter’s line-up pretty much since his arrival from Racing Club over eight summers ago.
Between the 2018/19 and 2025/26 seasons, the 2022 World Cup winner missed 207 days (35 games) through injury, though he missed 13 games last season alone, hinting that his lay-offs may become more frequent.
This leave Inter in a precarious position. They need to reduce their reliance on Lautaro in the long term, and it doesn’t look like relying on Esposito, Thuram, and Bonny alone will suffice. If things don’t improve in terms of output from these three as well as Lautaro’s availability, Inter may find themselves in the transfer market looking for a new striker as early as January.
Anshuman Joshi | GIFN