Although RB Salzburg missed two penalties, new signing Yann Sommer was one of the weakest visiting players in Inter Milan’s 4-3 test match win on Wednesday night.
The gap that Yann Sommer is supposed to fill at Inter Milan is not exactly small: André Onana was one of the key players at the Champions League finalist and was not worth over 50 million euros to Manchester United this summer for nothing. On his debut in the Inter jersey, Sommer may have raised doubts among some fans as to whether he is the right Onana successor.
In any case, the first minutes could hardly have gone worse for the 34-year-old Swiss when the Nerazzurri played a test match against RB Salzburg in pouring rain on Wednesday evening. He clearly brought down RB attacker Karim Konaté in the penalty area as early as the fifth minute and was lucky that the 19-year-old put the penalty he was due over the top of the box.
Two bloopers after six minutes
Just one minute later, Sommer was not decisive enough in clearing the ball on the edge of the box, allowing Konaté to shoot into the empty box from the left. Later, the newcomer with the number one on his shirt, who had been signed from FC Bayern for six million euros, showed a little more stability and was powerless in the second and third goals conceded – both after a standard situation. Nevertheless, he was one of the weakest players for the visitors in the end.
“Basically, he didn’t have the security you’d expect from someone the management had chased long and hard,” commented the “Gazzetta dello Sport”. The good news, he said, was that the best time to afford such games was in pre-season.
After all: Sommer played just two days after his signing, celebrated a 4:3 victory and saved a second penalty. The 19-year-old Croatian Roko Simic, like Konaté the fouled player in the opening phase, shot past on the right in the 69th minute, Sommer would have been in the right corner.
“Happy about my debut with Inter,” the ex-Munich man wrote on Instagram afterwards. “More to come!” He will certainly have been referring to missions, not unfortunate performances like the one in Salzburg.