Inter slide into dangerous waters

It seems that Inter cannot reach the same standards of two years ago when the team was then under the shrewd management of Jose Mourinho.

The 2-1 upset to fierce rivals Juventus at the San Siro late Saturday was the nerazzurri’s fifth defeat from nine matches since the start of the Serie A season. Inter are only one point outside the drop zone and just ahead of struggling trio Cesena, Lecce and Novara.

Since Mourinho’s departure, Inter hired Rafael Benitez, Leo-nardo and Gianpiero Gasperini but there was no level of consistency in Inter’s play despite the odd piece of silverware along the way.

With Gasperini replacing Leonardo in summer, Inter got off to a stuttering start and lost the Italian Super Cup. The former Genoa coach was fired last month and the new man in charge, Claudio Ranieri, did manage to steady the ship but results are still eluding Inter at home.

With the much-travelled Ranieri on the bench, Inter have already lost three times in Serie A but, at least, the team have shown some signs of recovery in successive Champions League victories over CSKA Moscow and Lille. Those two wins left Inter in pole position to qualify for the first knock-out stage of the tournament.

Indeed, these two years have seen Inter’s fortunes taking a huge nosedive as they have been consistently on their way down ever since they won their third Champions Cup, which brought to an end Mourinho’s highly-successful two-year spell in Milan.

The departure of Mourinho and, then, that of prolific striker Samuel Eto’o could be taken as signs that Massimo Moratti may have lost his passion and appetite to bring more success to his club.

Critics in Italy say he has committed serious blunders which have contributed significantly to Inter’s downfall.

Other pundits also think that it would have been beneficial had Inter gradually started rejuvenating the squad with the signing of new players, ones who show promise and the will to succeed.

Diego Milito, Maicon, Esteban Cambiasso, Lucio, Dejan Stankovic and Walter Samuel, to cite a few, are no longer the players they used to be.

Besides, these players have won almost everything there was at stake in Italy and Europe. So, they could do well to move elsewhere and re-launch their careers with other clubs like veteran Andrea Pirlo did in summer when he left Milan to join Juventus.

To keep Inter at the top, Moratti should have reshuffled his squad in a similar vein adopted by Luciano Moggi when Marcello Lippi coached Juve in the late 1990s.

Juve embarked on an impressive winning streak despite offloading the likes of Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Baggio, Christian Vieri and Zinedine Zidane along the way.

Moggi was making huge profits from the sale of such star players but at the same time, Lippi was able to introduce new players who ensured that the team did not lose its flair, balance and the desire to succeed.

But, at Inter it seems Moratti still has to identify a suitable replacement for Mourinho. The oil tycoon thought he might have done the job by luring Benitez to his fold but the Spaniard simply did not click with his players.

If Benitez was initially deemed as a long-term option at Inter, the same cannot be said of Leonardo, Gasperini and Ranieri, all three stop-gap solutions.

Moratti has to unearth another coach to guide Inter back to the glory days... Pep Guardiola perhaps!