Let’s continue the game I started in the title of this editorial. You understand what it’s about, the person who finds teh most negative adjectives to describe Inter’s performance wins. The Inter we saw tonight against Fiorentina was a re-run of last seasons away fixture to Roma or the defeat we suffered against Barcelona by 2-0 at the Camp Nou or for those who remember: the 6-0 loss to Milan. The performance by all players except Handanovic, Schelotto, Alvarez as well as Cassano (who is salvaged by his goal) was so awful that they all should almost be forced to take off their jerseys not to defile our beautiful colours.
It’s perfectly plausible to be able to write an entire book on just exactly how poorly every single player performed tonight but instead I’ll choose to stick to a few starting with Guarin. Just what exactly was he doing on the pitch today? In earlier editorials I’ve discussed whether or not Guarin is Schizophrenic and I must say that my worries in this area has not decreased as I’m sitting here asking myself whatever happened to that fantastic player who carried the entire team on his shoulders. Where did he go? Today I witnessed a slack, frustrated player who lost the ball all the time and who was completely unable to deliver a pass to a team-mate. As good as he was against Cluj in the first half, he followed up that performance by being the worst player on the pitch in the second half and continued that negative trend today. If Stramaccioni hadn’t explained that Gargano was injured I would have joined in the choir of those who demand his resignation due to the choice not to insert the Uruguayan in the half-time break.
Javier Zanetti was also very poor today. This is also something we’ve all been able to see earlier this season; Il Capitano’s body can’t take playing three matches per week. Zanetti’s invisibility was only matched by that of Kuzmanovic and Cambiasso. Now Stramaccioni: As already mentioned Gargano had a small injury problem and couldn’t be risked, so what should he had done instead? It’s always easy to draw the correct conclusions in hindsight, but what strikes me the most is that Inter definately shoudl have started with a 3-man defence as Juan Jesus put all his flaws out on display for all to see and Ranocchia is no Walter Samuel, not yet anyway. A 5-man midfield would have made life much more difficult for Fiorentina to be able to play their passing-style football as well as making it much more difficult for Jovetic and Ljajic to come into those one-on-one situations which they came into all throughout tonights match. However, it must be said that this feels like an impossible alternative for Stramaccioni to choose given the performance against Chievo and Cluj.
So what was it in Stramaccioni’s pre-match preparations that failed miserably tonight? Everything went pear-shaped since the defence as well as the attacking options were awful, something has to start going the young tacticians way and I say this as one of his biggest supporters and defenders given that he admits his mistakes in the handling of the squad rotation system after having played in the Europa League. Given the current injury situation Inter CANNOT field a first-team line-up against Cluj given the derby game to be played three days later. This is impossible as the players look completely exhausted, but in all fairness this is not something that happens to Inter and Inter alone, but also to Juventus, Napoli and maybe evev Lazio tomorrow, despite the fact the they get another day of rest.
Stramaccioni now faces a grueling test; he has to show that he is up to the task of not only learnign from his mistakes but to also handle the midweek fixture in Romania in a convincing way. Otherwise Inter and Moratti’s project will end up in rubble and we will yet again be standing there with another temporary manager, who will subsequently be replaced by another manager with new ideas come next season and who again will be sacked mid-way through the season. We cannot afford this and this is why I am on Stramaccioni’s side, Inter is in desparate need of continuity and if we have to sacrifice playing in the Champions League for a few seasons in order for us to be able to reap the good results in the future then I for one am willing to endure this.
Today however, I am mostly worried about the 11 zombies who entered the pitch without honoring the shirt one bit. It’s inconceivable to me as to how 11 players can perform as poorly as they have and not be ashamed, let’s hope that they’re as ashamed as I was tonight and that they let their anger do the talking in a week when we face Balotelli and Milan, when we face an opponent which could shed some light on this rollercoaster of a season and we once and for all see if we truly stand a chance to qualify for the Champions League or not. One thing is certain and that is that Inter can’t perform like this in the derby and we all know who will be blamed if things don’t go the way Inter need them to go in the derby. We need 11 lions who roar and show that tonights performance was not worthy of Inter. Because if it was possible for us to sink lower than we did after the defeat at Siena then it’s safe to say that we have, and a win in the derby is quite possibly the only way out of this mess.
However if the players aren’t prepared to pull themselves up by their collars and bleed for the shirt then this will be impossible. Irrespective of who the manager is every supporter wants to see the players in his team put in a shift of work. On Wednesday I’ll go down to Milano, on Thursday I’m joined by 30 people from Inter Club Interisti Svedesi. That if anything is a sign that the black and blue passion is resilient and tireless, just like my colleagues at SempreInter.com. After a performance like this it’s easy to switch off the computer, phone and TV and ask the world to go to hell whilst boiling inside. Instead time is put into translating interviews to two languages and forcing oneself to go though every single annoying match situation over and over again. Tireless and passionate is what can be said about the away fans who have paid a lot of money to witness this humiliation in the away-stand at the Artemio Franchi. Because when the Inter on the pitch are so woeful the black and blue colours are represented by us supporters, by you who is reading this at home, by the fans in the Curva, by those of us who will travel down on Thursday and by those who confess to having a black and blue coloured heart all over the world.
