Article 74 — What Is The Trouble At Inter?
If reports are to be believed, Inter is on a collision cause between the club’s management and the manager, Antonio Conte. Why does Inter keep getting into situations like this? WHY!!!! It threatens to completely de-rail the season. So much for ending the days of Pazza Inter.
In my opinion, I feel Inter should stick with Antonio Conte for next season. He started the season very well and had a good first half to the season. The mystery is why did it stop? I am still at odds as to why did Conte suddenly pull the handbrakes on the team’s play.
It was going so well in terms of play and strategy. We were taking the initiative in the play, pressing high, aggressively and we kept the ball well. We passed it around with speed and accuracy. Since the turn of the year, we no longer press high, the aggression and intensity in the pressing and passing were gone and we find ourselves sitting deeper. Our play has got slower and a lot more predictable. Psychologically, we look like a spent force as well.
There are games left to be played and the circumstances are unique for this season due to the long period of absence and then a crammed schedule of matches played every three to four days. However, this downturn in form started when the season was still in its regular form.
It seems Conte has seek assurances from the management that they would invest in the squad in the summer. For me, that is a no-brainer. It is certain the club will invest and further strengthen the squad. We have been doing well on that front. There is nothing to suggest that we will not sign anyone else after signing Achraf Hakimi. He has also publicly made noise suggesting that he will evaluate with the board at the end of the season on his position at the club. It is the last thing we need to de-stabilise us further.
At various times this season, he has fired shots at the board and club at the signings we have made. In my opinion, the club made many good signings in the previous summer. We signed Diego Godin, Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez, Nicolo Barella, Stefano Sensi, Cristiano Biraghi, Valentino Lazaro and Lucien Agoume. That is more than some other clubs that I know who struggle to make a handful of signings.
Out of all these signings, Lukaku, Barella and Sensi have done well. All three have been integral for us. Sanchez was doing well until he got a major injury. Godin was a big-name signing made on a free transfer that hasn’t quite hit the heights of his time at Atletico Madrid. Lazaro was a flop, Agoume has hardly played and Biraghi has not been the player we thought he would be. This is still a reasonable number of signings made to add to a squad that has qualified for the Champions League two seasons in a row. We lost Ivan Perisic, Mauro Icardi and Radja Nainggolan over tactical and disciplinary issues. It was perceived that this would help us in terms of building a squad that was cohesive and less disruptive.
While I favour the sale of Icardi and understand that Perisic didn’t fit in Conte’s tactical system, I felt we should have kept Nainggolan for his experience, personality and character. What a player like him would have done at a time like now when we are struggling we would never know. We have greatly missed Barella and Sensi through injuries and Conte has to look at his medical and conditioning team on why the issue keeps repeating with them. There are also other muscular injuries suffered by members of the squad.
Fast-forward to the winter transfer window, we signed two full-backs, Victor Moses and Ashley Young. Moses is a favourite of Conte from his time at Chelsea and was signed to provide cover and competition for Antonio Candreva on the right wing-back. Young was signed after Kwado Asamoah was sidelined for a long time with injury. Finally, we signed creative playmaker that we have been missing, Christian Eriksen. Again the club was not afraid to dip into their transfer budget to sign players for their manager.
Moses was coming into Inter after a long period of inactivity. He has only produced one good performance from start to finish before getting sidelined by injury. Young has been our best signing in the winter but I still don’t feel he is better than Asamoah and is only slightly better than Biraghi. Before Eriksen’s signing, our main source of creativity in midfield came from Sensi and Marcelo Brozovic. Eriksen was to offer a traditional source of creativity.
He too didn’t play too often for Tottenham Hotspur before joining Inter and has been the Invisible Man in our games struggling to impose himself. The winter signings came at a time when the team was generally struggling and on a downturn. That has affected them.
Now, Mr Conte, we have a squad of good quality, it is not bad. We have seen squads of worse quality at Inter. Stop lamenting about players and fretting about investments. Trust the process, the club will make signings. You do your job and get the team playing well again. Show faith in your players and as a manager, it is your duty to improve the players we have. We cannot keep signing players every time we are not doing well to fix the problem. The problem we have now is not the players but the mental state and confidence of the team. As the manager, it is your duty and responsibility to better that.
You are the world’s most expensive manager and you have been hired not to just sit and demand signings. I admit the squad is not ideal and can be improved further but it is a process. We are not Manchester City or Paris-Saint Germain for whom cash is not an issue and can dip into the transfer market and sign whoever they like. Look at yourself and question yourself Mr Conte. Why are you so stubborn in your ways? Why do you say you have faith in your players and then display so little of it in your decisions? Look at yourself and your ways because it has contributed to our dip in form.
Luciano Spalletti faced this in his two seasons at the club and in both seasons, he has arrested the slump to somehow get us into the Champions League. We expect better from you Mr Conte. If you are unhappy at the end of the season and want to leave, please feel free to go but I hope we don’t get to that. I hope as well that in an attempt to appease the manager, we go out and sign his darlings from his time at Juventus and Chelsea, players that are getting on in age and over-the-hill.
Experience is needed to ride over tough times and difficult moments in a season. The know-how to win trophies is vital and we need players like that in the squad. We need strong leaders but we also need players that are young and approaching their prime. Modern football favours youthfulness and intense, quick attacking play not a bunch of old hags. Get your act together CONTE!
