I had high expectations about the week 14 match against Udinese this weekend, from experience of watching Inter throughout the years I know as well as anyone that Udinese always make life difficult for us and this clash was going to be no different with the Zebrette up in the title fight while the Nerazzurri as we all know are pushing hard to get themselves involved up top of the table but are suffering from a lack of confidence that has effected our entire league season so far.
In my opinion before the match Claudio Ranieri should have been giving his players a bit of a confidence boost to ensure we went into the match with the right desire to win but instead during his pre match press conference he was full of praise for Udinese instead which was exactly not what the Inter players needed to hear, and I believe that instead of boosting their confidence this will have had more of a damaging effect on the team morale.
So once again Inter have failed and our rivals can have a good laugh at our seriously bad league position and form. So what is the reason for the crisis at Inter? In my opinion a huge factor is confidence our players just don’t seem to have belief in themselves, and I don’t want to go on about Mourinho as I have accepted we must move on from him but his philosophies must still stand and the main reason we were so successful in 2010 was because the entire squad had the belief that they could win everything and that is what we need to get back.
The other factor is two-fold and both concern Ranieri, firstly I don’t believe his formations fit our squad and use them to their full potential, as I’ve been saying on Twitter for a while now the perfect formation for us is a 4-2-3-1 but Ranieri will never play a progressive formation like this so I’m just wasting my breath, what we need is a forward thinking coach that knows how to take Inter headlong in to the modern game and enables us to play flowing attacking football but with a solid defensive balance that can cut out any counter attacking moves by the opposition.
The second issue I have with Ranieri is his ridiculous substitution policy, in my previous article on the Siena game I said we were lucky that his substitutions didn’t cost us the game but one day they will and unfortunately that day was the Udinese game.
On the positive side Faraoni had a wonderful debut and is looking very promising so my suggestion to Ranieri and Moratti is to face facts that we’re not going to win anything this season or maybe not even qualify for the Champions league so we must put more faith in our youngsters and use them to replace the old guard this season, they have all proved they are capable of playing at the level required and in most cases are playing much better than the older players we seem to rely on week in and week out so it seems insane to me that we are not giving them more opportunities to prove that it’s time to shift our focus to the new generation.
I have complete faith in them so why can’t the powers that be at Inter have some too. If we use them and invest in faster defenders plus a striker that can score regularly we can be at the top again in a couple of seasons where as if we don’t I’m afraid we may see a return to the dark days of the 90’s, A fact that’s not lost on Massimo Moratti who reports suggest was still in the changing room with Ranieri and the players over a hour after the end of the match.
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I like Ranieri as a person and I know a revolving door policy isn’t going to bring success, but I am starting to seriously question the Tinkermans decisions. Things couldn’t get any worse this season (hopefully!), but all Claudio is doing is showing us he isn’t bold enough to take the team forward. Sentimentality is getting in the way of progress at Inter, and we need to give some serious game time to Faraoni, Viviano (when fit), Caldirola, Poli, Obi, Coutinho and Castaignos to see whether or not they are good enough for the future of the club. With a fully fit squad however, I fear Ranieri will continue to play it safe and keep fielding the veterans. I would rather remember them as treble winning legends than as past-it has beens! FORZA INTER!!
I totally agree mate, we have to look to the future now and rebuild, if it takes a few years then so be it! As you say it’s time for the last ‘La Grande Inter’ to step back and let us remember the good times. I’m just writing a piece about my view on the situation at Inter should be ready later this week, I think I make some valid points in it 🙂
Nice one- looking forward to it! If nothing else, at least the crisis is giving us something to rant about!!
Do you think Inter would be in this situation if they hadn’t have sold Samuel Eto’o? I just cant see where the goals are going to come from, I like Pazzini but he isnt a 30 a season striker.