Data-driven manager of the month: Inzaghi takes Inter to Europe's summit
Our pick for May is Inter Milan's Simone Inzaghi, who will remember the month as one of the most successful periods of his coaching career.
Not only did Inzaghi manage to break into the top four of Serie A with Inter, qualifying them for the group stage of next season's Champions League, but he also defeated old rivals AC Milan in this year's semi-finals.
Why exactly has his side been so successful? In short, because of their compactness, their midfield and their superb trio of strikers.
Inzaghi's Inter are characterised by a pragmatic style of play that combines defensive stability with fast and accurate counter-attacks.
A key part of his philosophy is simplicity and discipline; Inter's players are very well organised in a narrow 3-5-2 formation that allows them to control the middle of the pitch, with Edin Dzeko defending deep in the left midfield from his position as a right forward.
This compactness is further complemented by an active midfield trio, which usually plays very aggressively.
In the image below we can see the positioning of the Milan goalkeeper when Inter are squeezed into an extremely compact shape, leaving no chance for the opponent to easily win the ball from the rebound.
In possession, Inter play in a 3-4-3 formation, with defender Francesco Acerbi moving into the midfield and wing-backs Federico Dimarco and Denzel Dumfries staying wide.
The aim is to lure the opposition into pressing Alessandro Bastoni with the ball at his feet after a series of several passes between the defenders and goalkeeper.
One possible solution is then a quick pass to Romelu Lukaku, who immediately lays the ball off to Lautaro Martinez and then runs in behind the opposition defence to receive the Argentine's pass.
The very first minute of the last league game against Atalanta is a good example of this kind of play; the move ended with a goal from Lukaku.
Something similar has been implemented in the Premier League by Brighton coach Roberto De Zerbi and has been hugely effective.
This season, Inter actually boasted the best attack in Serie A according to the expected goals metric, which takes into account the quality of the shooting opportunities created.
According to it, they should have scored 62 goals during the season and thus, from an analytical point of view, surpassed even the attack of champion Napoli (55 expected goals), who this season put everything they touched into the opponent's net.
However, Napoli's title win was largely built on an impenetrable defence, one stronger even than Inter's.
In the final third, Inter have benefited from the excellent performance of all three strikers who have rotated in the starting line-up throughout the season - Edin Dzeko, Lautaro Martinez and Romelu Lukaku.
Only Victor Osimhen has been a more dangerous player in the opposition's box this season than Martinez.
While the Argentine serves mainly as a goal-scoring tool at Inter thanks to his great movement, Dzeko and Lukaku are key for receiving long balls into the midfield.
In a metric that measures how often players receive passes in dangerous areas, they are among the league leaders along with Osimhen, Olivier Giroud and Rasmus Hojlund.
