Inter’s former sporting director, Marco Branca, spoke to Radio Sportiva and shared his thoughts on Inter and the transfer market. He begins with yesterday’s defeat against Sassuolo:

“You are never happy when you lose, but you need to have a healthy approach to it. Inter know what they need to improve on, losing is unpleasant but it can help. They had an excellent transfer market and have dedicated it to making the squad more complete and have added depth by purchasing new players for every position in order to cope with all the different competitions that they are in. They have worked hard in order to overcome the Financial Fair Play restrictions that had been imposed upon them. They did everything they could do.”

He goes on to discuss the Luka Modric situation: “I believe that when deals do not close, it means that there was no willingness to close them. It was not the right time, we are talking about one of the greatest players around, but all parties involved need to be in agreement in order for a deal to take place.”

Branca then talks about selling Coutinho: “The Brazilian was sold purely due to financial reasons, no one from the technical side of things wanted him to go, very similar to the sale of Salah.”

He then spoke about Spalletti and his renewal with Inter: “In general, there are no fixed rules, if they decided to renew with Spalletti, then they must have thought that now was the best time to do it. There is a very high level of professionalism these days because players know that it is in their best interest to perform well and be competitive as that is what decides whether or not they will be bought or redeemed.”

He finishes the interview by talking about the complications of the transfer market and how different leagues have different closing dates: “Different competitions do not share the same transfer window closing date and I think this should be fixed as soon as possible. I think closing the transfer window before the start of the season is best for everyone, especially for the coaches and players. However I also believe that the closing of the windows in Europe should be standardized, because there are many legal issues and market discrepancies that depend on the dates.”