Romelu Lukaku and Nicolò Barella had a visible argument late in the first half of Monday’s Sampdoria game. The striker was fed up with the teammate demonstratively complaining for not getting the ball in an offensive foray after the Belgian had a poor first touch. The forward tracked back to help the midfield and then reprimanded the Azzurri star.
Per Corriere della Sera, the marksman shouted.
“Nico don’t do like that. Enough, enough! Shut up. Enough with those arms.”
Lukaku went on to seemingly hurl a couple of insults toward Barella, but they weren’t entirely intelligible. They entered the locker room separately. They were distant from each other at the beginning of the second half too. The midfielder was the first one to emerge from the tunnel and didn’t speak with anybody, while the striker talked with Francesco Acerbi and André Onana before the start of the second half.
Neither had a particularly remarkable showing, as Inter were held to a tie by Sampdoria. Napoli’s lead grew to 15 points as a result of the stumble. Simone Inzaghi commented on the incident (via Virgilio).
“These things happen on the pitch, even though they shouldn’t. I would like to never see something like that again. We were nervous because we couldn’t break the deadlock. Lukaku and Barella are great friends. They sat next to each other and talked it out. They are very intelligent and understood they were wrong. I don’t like these situations, and I think they won’t occur any more.”
 |
Follow us on Google News for more updates on Serie A and Italian football |