Italian journalist Sandro Sabatini believes that former Inter coach Antonio Conte left some questions about his legacy when he departed the club in the summer.

Speaking to Italian broadcaster SportMediaset, Sabatini gave the view that the former coach has not shown that he could guide the Nerazzurri through a time of difficulty still looking strong as Simone Inzaghi has.

Conte’s impact on the Nerazzurri was significant, leading to the club to a Europa League final and second place finish in his first season in charge before last season the team won the Scudetto for the first time in eleven years under his stewardship.

However, the Italian left abruptly not long after the Scudetto triumph, not feeling that the conditions were right to continue his project given that the club’s financial situation forced them to sell players in the summer.

In his place arrived Simone Inzaghi, and the former Lazio coach has done very well to not only steady the team after a summer of upheaval but even improve their fortunes in Europe and demonstrate that they can look like a top side without the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi.

“I haven’t seen Inter play as well in Europe as they did in Madrid for years,” Sabatini stated. “They’ve been playing at this level for a while now.”

“Inter give the impression of a team who have been compressed into a diamond,” he went on, “one can argue about how much the foundations are based on the past seasons, but it is beyond question that at the moment, not only the level of play but also the results are better than last season.”

He explained that “There is little discussion about the numbers. Nobody can take away the merits of Conte, but Conte took away from his own legacy by leaving in the summer, this is the difficult thing.”

“He went away thinking that there was no future without Hakimi,” Sabatini said of the former coach, “which hasn’t been the case, there’s so much that he has been largely responsible for building.”

“This leaves unanswered questions which make evaluating the job done by Conte at Inter very difficult,” he reflected.