Importance Of The January Window For Inter

The business Inter does in the January transfer market will give us an indication of the ambition of the club and what kind of season we are expected to have. I am not keeping my hopes high though because we are well aware that our owners, the Suning Group are broke and would need to sell someone to be able to reinvest in the team. It's not a healthy situation to be in for the club. 

In the summer, Inter sort of put all the eggs into one basket and went out of their way to sign Romelu Lukaku on loan (on loan, not even a permanent transfer). This signing coupled with the failure to sell anyone for a big fee meant that Inter had to sacrifice on the signing of Gleison Bremer and Paulo Dybala despite being favourites to sign both players. Six months on, this risk has not paid off. Inter probably thought they were getting the Lukaku that left Inter for Chelsea but the reality was very different as Inter got the Lukaku they go when they signed him from Manchester United. The difference is that there is no Antonio Conte and Antonio Pintus at Inter now to hammer him to get him in shape physically and train him mentally and technically. There is no doubt about Lukaku's desire and hunger to make up to the Inter fans who felt betrayed by his departure. But that is having a negative impact on his performance. He started a handful of matches at the start of the season and from those matches, I could see he wasn't the same player he was. Then he got injured and in his eagerness to return from his injury to play a part for Inter, he aggravated his injury which meant a longer time out. The same thing happened at the World Cup where he was selected despite not being fit and he did more damage than good for himself mentally and emotionally as he had a howler in his only appearance for Belgium. It proved to be the difference between Belgium qualifying for the knockout round and getting eliminated in the group stage. I was always against this deal as I felt you never go back to your ex and unfortunately, I have been proven right. 

The signing of Joaquin Correa has also not been vindicated. He has blown hot and cold and he too has not been able to shake off injuries. Inter bought him maybe because he was a request of Simone Inzaghi having worked together at Lazio but his signing has been a flop. Inter need to invest in a striker that is quick, strong and technical. The sad fact is that Serie A is one of the slowest leagues in Europe and anyone quick and strong can thrive here. There were promising rumours linking us to Marcus Thuram from the time of the World Cup but those rumours are linking him further away from us. The other sad and hard truth is as I have mentioned, Suning doesn't have the money to invest even if Thuram will not cost big money to sign now. It has not been all bad with Suning as they invested a lot when they came in and supported the club by making the right signings but since the pandemic has affected their business, they are no longer able to invest like they used to and slowly this is affecting the quality of the team. 

It is sad that as a fan, we won the Scudetto after 10 years and if this continues might need to wait another decade before we celebrate another Scudetto. We had a great chance to defy doubts to make a clean sweep of the trophies in Italy which I felt we would have deserved but losing the Scudetto from an advantageous position was bitter pill to take. The performance and results this season proved that last season was the best it got for us and it goes downhill from here. 

We are struggling to come to an agreement to extend Milan Skriniar's contract and could lose him on a free transfer. It is a big loss as we would have the much-needed dough for him over the summer. I would have hated to see him go in the summer but even if are still going to lose him this summer, I would have rather lost him for some much-needed money. I always felt that the plan was to sell Stefan De Vrij whose contract is also running down this summer. I had come to terms with that as I felt it was the right time to sell him and we were then going to invest in Bremer but instead rumours were on selling Alessandro Bastoni first and then Skriniar who had still so much to give. In the end, we sold no one and didn't sign Bremer. Instead, we signed a 30-something-year-old, Francesco Acerbi on a free transfer. Acerbi is an upgrade on Andrea Ranocchia who left at the end of his contract but after losing Bremer, it looks like a bad signing as we are not refreshing the defence with youth and looking forward. I wouldn't mind Acerbi if we signed Bremer too. Also, I want to point out that Acerbi has done well since we signed him. 

Moving to midfield, we signed another 30-something in Henrikh Mkhitaryan which is not bad as he was considered an understudy for Hakan Calhanoglu. We made a promising signing, by signing young Albanian, Kristjan Asllani to deputise for Marcelo Brozovic. The reality is that in Brozovic's absence, Inzaghi has found Calhanoglu to deputise for him and to both their credit, he has done well there. As a result, Mkhitaryan has found space in the first team while Asllani has been reduced to a bit-part role. He hasn't been trusted to play in a different midfield position other than as a vice-Brozovic. 

On the wings, we signed another promising youngster, Raoul Bellanova but like Asllani, he has been reduced to a bit part role with Denzel Dumfries and Matteo Darmian challenging for the starting eleven spots as the right wing-back. We invested in Robin Gosens last January in preparation for losing Ivan Perisic this summer. It is another signing that has not worked out because Gosens is not the same player we saw do so well for Atalanta. He had a major injury last season and that has evidently affected him. To be fair to him, he has been great if he finds himself in a finishing position but in other aspects of his game, he is off it. This has enabled Federico Dimarco to emerge and take his position as a left wing-back. But this also means that Inter is unable to use the power play they used to good effect last season of having Dimarco as a left centre-back driving forward to support Perisic. 

This is where Inter is at the moment. I feel we could still win a cup or two which would match what we did last season but in terms of the league, instead of challenging for the Scudetto, realistically, we are looking at a challenge for a Champions League spot.