It’s a song all too familiar to the Nerazzurri faithful, a black & blue tune so different to the one sung when Mancini was last in charge of Inter but one that’s been heard frequently since May 23rd 2010.
Another season wasted, time to rebuild from scratch yet again. This is how it has been sounding from the Nerazzurri camp for the past 5 years when April is just around the corner, the exception ironically being last year when an increasingly unpopular Walter Mazzarri was leading Inter to a top 5 finish, albeit in a manner that was anything but attractive. Following the sacking of the “unpopular” one after a string of poor performances, Inter have crashed out of the Coppa Italia, plumeted down to 8th position in the Serie A and ultimately tonight crashed out of the Europa League after a lacklustre performance against Bundesliga outfit Wolfsburg.
It can’t come as a shock to anyone that Inter lost to a team that occupies 2nd place in the Bundesliga and who only 5 weeks ago demolished Bayern Munich at home. What is perhaps shocking is that the Nerazzurri didn’t even seem close to shaking Wolfsburg who in turn looked like they were playing at perhaps 60% of their ability. What’s truly depressing is also that Inter yet again looked like 11 individuals as opposed to playing like a team and that when faced with high quality opposition such as Wolfsburg, who are incredibly organized, the distance in terms of technical quality to a Champions League team became painfully evident for all to see.
However, this time the holes in the black & blue ship cannot be blaimed on the captain as Roberto Mancini’s career speaks for itself. No this time the gaping holes in terms of defensive quality as well as squad depth are so abundantly clear that they need to and have to be addressed for the club to be able to make that long awaited qualitative leap. One does not need to go further than the fact that Mateo Kovacic’s replacement tonight when Mancini was desperately looking for goals was none other than Zdravko Kuzmanovic. With Jonathan, Dodó and Nagatomo away due to injury Inter were forced to start with Campagnaro and subsequently D’Ambrosio on full-back but even if the aforementioned trio had not been missing due to injury, no-one can argue that their presense would raise the level in that particular position. Which is precisely where Inter’s achilles heal lies: there are too many mediocre players in the squad in key positions and this prevents the team and the club from returning to the level it deserves to be at.
There is a a lot of work to be done in the months ahead, but raising the quality of the squad remains the most important task that lays before Inter and more specifically Piero Ausilio, because if any conclusion could and should be drawn from these past 5 years, it is that you truly cannot make chicken soup with chicken poo.
