Icardi hits panic button as Inter go off course

MILAN: Inter Milan captain Mauro Icardi launched a late-season rallying call following an “unexplainable” second-half collapse in a 5-4 defeat to Fiorentina that dented the Nerazzurri’s hopes of Europa League football.

“If you ask me, with the squad we have we deserve to be playing the Europa League because our chances of Champions League football ended with the defeats to Sampdoria and Crotone,” Icardi said.

“We’ll see. We have five games left. Until May 28, we have to give every last drop and be as clinical as possible.”

Yet after another topsy-turvy performance, Inter’s hopes of a top five finish and entry to Europe’s second tier event look slim.

Inter travelled to the Artemio Franchi desperate for their first win in five league outings.

But despite responding to Matias Vecino’s 23rd minute opener with goals from Ivan Perisic and Icardi by the 34th minute, Stefano Pioli’s men suffered a dramatic collapse in the space of 17 second-half minutes that saw them concede a penalty as well as three goals before launching a futile, last-gasp revival after Khouma Babacar hit the second of a late brace in the 79th minute. Inter’s third defeat in a five-game winless run leaves the Nerazzurri in seventh place and, less than a year after their takeover by the Chinese Suning group, still out of Europe.

Inter host Napoli, in third and determined to battle for a top-two finish, next week and Pioli said: “There’s no justification for our performance. We had an unexplainable blackout.

“It seems that in this period we just don’t know how to respond to certain difficulties. This is a big handicap, because football is full of challenges.

“We have to try to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”