High-flying Inter look to exploit Liverpool’s form crisis

Inter Milan welcomes struggling Liverpool to San Siro on Tuesday night in a blockbuster Champions League fixture.

Inter cruised to a 4-0 victory over Como on Saturday but fell to a late 2-1 defeat at Atletico Madrid in their last Champions League outing.

Liverpool surrendered a two-goal advantage to Leeds United, which ended in a 3-3 stalemate on Saturday. The Reds were battered 4-1 at home by PSV Eindhoven last time out, leaving them in 13th place with nine points on the CL league phase standings.

Match preview

Intern Milan and Liverpool have faced each other on six previous occasions, all in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, with the Reds winning four of the six to date (L2).

Five of the last six meetings between the Nerazzurri and the Reds have seen one of the sides win and keep a clean sheet (2 for Inter, 3 for Liverpool).

Liverpool have won five of their last six away games against Italian sides in Europe (L1), including one at the Giuseppe Meazza last season (3-1 v Milan in September 2024).

Since losing their first two UEFA Champions League home matches of 2022, one of which was against Liverpool (0-2), the Nerazzurri have gone unbeaten in their last 18 home matches in the UEFA Champions League (W15 D3), the longest current streak in the competition.

Inter’s Lautaro Martínez has scored in all five of his UEFA Champions League games at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in 2025 (8 goals). The only player to score in 6+ consecutive home appearances in the competition for an Italian club is Andriy Shevchenko for Milan (7 from Mar 2004 to Sep 2005).

The only central midfielder to be involved in more open play sequences ending in a shot in the UEFA Champions League this season than Dominik Szoboszlai (37) is Vitinha (58). The Hungarian has been directly involved in five goals in Liverpool’s five games in the competition this term (2 goals, 3 assists).

Team news

Inter Milan

Matteo Darmian, Denzel Dumfries, Tomas Palacios and Raffaele Di Gennaro are unavailable for the host due to injuries.

Liverpool

Mohammed Salah is absent from the visitor’s travelling list, serving punishment due to his outburst in an interview.

Coady Gakpo, Wataru Endo and Federico Chiesa have not made the trip to Italy.

Jeremie Frimpong and Giovanni Leoni are sidelined with injuries.

Predicted line-ups

Inter Milan: Yann Sommer, Manuel Akanji, Francesco Acerbi, Alessandro Bastoni, Carlos Augusto, Federico Dimarco, Petar Sucic, Hakan Çalhanoglu, Nicolo Barella, Lautaro Martínez, Marcus Thuram.

Liverpool: Alisson, Joe Gomez, Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk, Milos Kerkez, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitiké, Alexander Isak.