Antonio Conte’s all-conquering Inter XI is full of players who could easily have left the club last year, as explained by a report in the Italian media today.
The Nerazzurri are six points clear of AC Milan at the top of Serie A (with a game in hand) and are heavy favourites to win the Scudetto.
Corriere dello Sport’s print edition highlighted that five members of Inter’s first-choice XI were close to departing in recent months: Milan Skriniar, Marcelo Brozovic, Ivan Perisic, Christian Eriksen and Lautaro Martinez.
As it is, Conte has ‘recovered’ all of them to the club’s cause and is reaping the rewards, with Inter having put together an eight-game winning run in the league.
Brozovic could have left Inter last summer in a swap deal with Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Leandro Paredes, the Rome-based paper recalled, only for talks to collapse after the Croatian’s entourage requested high commission payments.
Skriniar was also viewed as expendable when Inter were looking to raise funds to sign Chelsea’s Ngolo Kante, but the Slovak’s interest from Tottenham Hotspur also came to nothing.
Lautaro was courted at length by Barcelona before the Catalan giants ‘abandoned’ the striker due to their financial problems, while Eriksen seemed set to re-join the Premier League in January before resurrecting his Inter career.
Perisic, meanwhile, was originally discarded by Conte and sent on loan to Bayern Munich last season, but has turned into Inter’s most dependable left wing-back since the turn of the year.
