Whilst Saints once again kept marching on at the weekend, it was not so smooth for Thursday's opponents Inter Milan who saw fan unrest at the San Siro.

Inter Milan fans were up in arms before a ball was kicked in their home game against Cagliari, their Ultra's in the Curva Nord called forward Mauro Icardi a clown ahead of the game and cheered when he missed a penalty in the 2-1 defeat to newly promoted Cagliari who leapfrogged Inter who now languish in 1th place in Serie A.

Icardi's crime had been to criticise the Inter supporters in a recently published autobiography, in it he claimed that he had been "hailed as a hero" in the dressing room for challenging a section of supporters after a defeat at Sassuolo in February 2015.

In Italy the Ultra's groups have a lot of influence at clubs and those who fall foul of them be they player or otherwise can expect abuse and that abuse has sometimes spilled into a more sinister side and even violence.

Icardi had tried to diffuse the situation on twitter before the game, but this did not stop Inter fans abusing him and displaying a banner regarding him.

Icardi has scored six goals this season but missed a penalty with the score 0-0 prompting the Inter Ultra's to cheer and now they are also demanding he be stripped of the captaincy.

Club president and ex-captain Javier Zanetti said: "We cannot accept this kind of behaviour from an employee."

The pressure is not just on Icardi though, it is also on manager Frank De Boer, at one time this summer a favourite for the Saints job, the Dutchman has won only one home game since being appointed at the start of the season and Inter are stuck firmly in mid table 11th with 11 points from 8 games.

In many respects their record is very similar to Saints having won 3 drawn 2 and lost 3 of their opening games, however whereas Saints started badly and then picked up, Inter started badly had three straight wins and then have lost the last two games and drawn the other.

So Saints head to the San Siro and a club clearly in turmoil both on and off the pitch.

Photo: Action Images

arfurdent added 09:10 - Oct 18 are we talking Fratton Park here
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SaintBrock added 09:39 - Oct 18 One thing we should have learned by now, never under-estimate an opposition.
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