Inter Milan in relegation zone: Who is to blame?
No one can deny that the start of the 2011/12 season has been a disaster for Inter with the team sitting in the relegation zone at a lowly 18th place with just 4 points from a possible 18, making this possibly the worst ever start to a league campaign in the club’s history. This got me thinking as to who should take responsibility for this disaster? Is it the coaches? The players? Or even our beloved President Massimo Moratti? Well in my opinion it’s yes, yes and yes they are all to blame and have contributed to us being in this position.
I then started to think am I the only Interista that thinks this. So I decided to ask the Inter Family on Twitter and Facebook to see what the general opinion was and the responses I received proved that there are many issues affecting Inter at the moment. Fellow Nerazzurri writer Hadibase wrote this good piece titled Blame the Management: The downfall of Inter Milan in which he gives his opinion on what’s gone wrong with the club.
The one thing that became obvious quite quickly was that this downfall of Inter isn’t a recent phenomenon and it is a culmination of factors that have come to the fore right since we won the treble in 2010. So before I give you my views on it, I shall give you two examples of the responses I got on this subject.
The first is from Angga Musin – @buleangga
Hello Don, Here are my thoughts about our beloved Inter.
I think Inter’s current condition is due to several factors accumulated from the last two years. Many Inter players went past their peaks (the peak was winning the treble). So, I think our main problem here is we failed to regenerate well. Many players such as Walter Samuel, Lucio, Chivu, Cambiasso, and Deki should have left the club last year (regardless of what they did for winning the treble).
No wonder we struggle this season, unlike Juve and Merda, who I think did a great job this year in bringing in youngsters. We, on the other hand, did buy Alvarez, Poli, Jonathan, Castaignos but neither Gasp nor Ranieri displayed the guts to play them for a full match. I know the coach must have his own reasons and there is also the problem of the youngsters adapting to the team, but I think if we want to start something new on our formation, why not give them a run.
About Eto’o leaving Inter, I think it was a great piece of business because Eto’o was already 31 and his wages were overburdening Inter. Inter, though, should have bought someone of the same quality as his, not Diego Forlan. I know he is great player, but Inter already have Milito and Pazzo as target men. We needed someone with great penetration skills like Eto’o. We do have Zarate, a skillful player but he is not a team player (at least not yet). Forlan is 32, isn’t he? Bad move in bringing him in I guess.
I know Inter suffered financially, but if we start selling our “dead wood” players, we can buy more younger players and have them bring a new style to the club. The team has limited creativity in midfield. If Sneijder is injured, so we don’t have anyone who can dictate the play. Alvarez and Cou could, but yet again the coach is not prepared to field them, for Ranieri seems to prefer Muntari over Cou / Ricky.
About the current formation, I believe Sneijder does not fit in the current system as trequartista. I think he is more of the mould of Xavi, Pirlo and Cesc who can dominate the midfield and control the tempo of the play. He does not have the speed necessary for a trequartista or a second striker. If we want to play like Barcelona, I think Sneijder could play the Xavi role and Alvarez or Cou could do the Iniesta part. Sneijder can conjure up sumptuous through-balls, and Cou / Alvarez can devastate our opponent’s defenders with speed and technique.Under Mourinho, we played 4-2-3-1 with Sneijder as trequartista and Inter were successful, but it does not apply any more.
Hence the bottom line is that since Inter did not regenerate well, opponents got used to our strengths. Apart from that, several key players went past their peaks and the midfield has suffered from severe lack of creativity. I hope Moratti realizes this and makes an immediate improvement to our beloved Inter.
The second is from @dapisss
There are several things which I would like to point out about Inter’s current situation
1. Moratti’s managerial musical chair
In just two years time, Moratti has changed 4 different caretakers to manage our squad. And I don’t need to tell you the stories about what Benitez & Gasperini have done to the club right? For me, those many changes was not good at all for the team’s morale.
2. Importance of giving the youngsters a run-in
I would like to take note on the average age of our squad. Mind you that our squad is filled with legends, but just like legends anywhere else, they too have grown old. While the youngsters brought in during the ‘regeneration’ are technically new to the team, I have my doubts. Take a look at Ricky Alvarez, a young talented Argentinian, but still finds it hard to adapt to Italian football. The same thing goes for Luc Castaignos. What about Diego Forlan? He is a well-known footballer, a top class striker (esp with his national team, Uruguay) but unfortunately he’s too old and also new to Italian football. My idea is that if we want to progress with the future in mind, we have to let those youngsters play more on the pitch, let them grow bit by bit, while the veterans take charge in motivating and of course act as back ups.
3. The ageing veterans
Speaking of veterans, here’s my theory. My wild guess is that our old players have this feeling that they have won all the trophies that they can get so we don’t see their thirst & hunger for more, and that’s dangerous.
4. The injury curse
A storm of injuries come and go hitting our squad consistently, and if I’m not mistaken our only injury-free player is Il Capitano (who is amazingly 38 years old). But what about the rest? They have been just disastrous. It’s the thing that makes you go nuts as a coach when almost your entire squad gets injured. This makes your team lose its balance. Just take a look at how Wesley’s injury has destroyed the creativity in the attacking section or how vulnerable the defence is when Ranocchia / Samuel are not available.5. Lack of consistency
Our current coach needs to formulate a tactic which can make the team be consistent for 90 minutes of play. Consider the last display at Catania. It demonstrated the team’s great troubles in being consistent for 90 minutes of play. Ranieri needs to fix it before it is too late, because the team is not ready for another new coach yet.
I guess that would be all, my personal view and humble opinion about the club and how to fix it. Thank you.
Forza Inter per sempre!
So now it’s my turn, and to be honest I agree with what has already been said. It all started on that fateful day, the 22nd of May 2010 with Inter achieving what had been the club’s dream for 45 years. We did it in a more spectacular fashion than any of us could have believed, with the Champions league victory topping off a historic treble putting Inter right up there on the footballing map along with great clubs such as Barcelona and Manchester United. But all that joy was short lived as shortly after the win, our legendary coach Jose Mourinho announced his departure. This was the turning point for the club.
The first problem came with Mourinho’s replacement. Who can replace a coach who is arguably the best in the world? Well according to Massimo Moratti, that would be the recently fired Spaniard Rafa Benitez. I still don’t understand that move either. But that wasn’t the only controversial decision Moratti made that summer, as despite Rafa’s calls to freshen up the treble winning squad, our great President decided that we didn’t need any new players. We know how that story ended with injuries hitting the squad right, left and centre while the coach failed to produce the winning displays Interisti had got used to under Mourinho. Out went Benitez and Leonardo walked in, despite him being a Milanista legend.
To be fair, Leonardo did a good job with his summer acquisitions and managed to pull Inter out of disaster, take the club to the Champions League quarters, second place in the Serie A and win the Coppa Italia. But humiliating defeats to Milan and Schalke showed that Leo really was not the right man for Inter.
As if last season’s disasters were not enough, Moratti failed to learn from his mistakes and brought in Gasperini, a man unproven at managing a top club, as opposed to bringing in a world class manager. Gasperini sold one of our two star players, brought in youngsters who were excellent prospects, but made the blunder of bringing in an ageing Diego Forlan to replace Eto’o.
The point is that although Inter’s players seemed to have lost their drive for success post Mourinho, Moratti was the one who did most of the damage. The President loves the club and is a good man, but his extravagant spending in previous years left the club debt-ridden, thus meaning we could not keep hold of Eto’o when we needed him most. It all begs the question as to whether Moratti has lost his ambition for Inter after pulling out all stops to win the treble and match the achievements of ‘La Grande Inter’ of his father’s days. It seems the President has been content to let us return to the dark days of the ’90s instead of pushing the the club to the next level.
Of course this is all speculation as I have no idea of what happens behind Inter’s closed doors, but I do agree with Hadibase in that it is time for Moratti to step aside and hand over the club to someone who has got the finances and drive to put Inter above the likes of Barcelona and not settle for being the underdogs of Europe every season. I don’t think for a second that Inter will finish this season in an embarassing position as Ranieri has got our squad back winning games, but we do need some major changes soon before our great club starts to really fall apart. One thing is for sure and that is that in these uncertain times, the passion and love the Inter Family has for the Nerazzurri will always stay strong and propel the club out of these dark days.
Edited by Zico