Inter Milan’s Summer Transfer Activity

I can understand that we have a strong squad and are the reigning Italian and European champions as well as Italian Cup winners. I also do not know the details of our financial state and I am aware that we are planning for when the FIFA financial fair play regulations come into play. However, did our treble winning side need reinforcements in the summer after such a successful season? Yes, for three reasons:

1. Lack of Motivation
It takes a lot to motivate players who have won everything. When a team is chasing objectives motivation is at its highest. Once obtained and a team are the champions is it harder to motivate players to retain titles than chase what has as of yet been not been obtained. Before we won the Champions League we were extremely motivated to win it despite being four time Italian champions as the Champions League is the richest prize in the game. Motivational levels amongst certain players who may have wanted to move to seek new challenges after winning everything with us last season is also likely to be low. Then there is our new manager, Rafa Benitez. One of the biggest contributing factors to our treble winning season was the ability of Mourinho to motivate players to consistently perform at the highest level. This is not a reflection of Benitez’s ability as any manager we hired would never have the same motivational levels as Mourinho. Bentiez’s job to motivate is even harder as he has to motivate a team that last season won everything. Furthermore, the lack of purchases may have an adverse effect on our team’s motivation. If the board are unwilling to strengthen our team then maybe the players will feel our club’s hierarchy are satisfied with what we have won and are reluctant to continue striving for success to the extent that they have done in previous years.

2. Quality in Squad Depth
We have one of the best starting line ups in the world. However, last season we dropped a lot of points in Serie A from late winter and all the way through spring competing in three competitions due to tiredness, fatigue and Mourinho’s refusal to rotate the squad. If he did rotate the squad then we still may not have collected many more points due to the quality of ‘fringe players’ and the lack of playing time they received to gel within our team. This summer we sold some good players fringe players that could have been useful in squad rotation when competing in three competitions, notably Quaresma and Balotelli, and we failed to replace them. At centre back Cordoba and Materazzi are not getting any younger and their ability is on the decline. At full back we still failed to sign anyone, despite it being a problem position for us for a number of seasons, same with an attacking a creativity centre midfielder with flair. Our biggest problem lies upfront. Milito and Eto are fantastic, but they cannot play every game next season at the highest level. With Balotelli now gone and not replaced our only strikers are Pandev, Suazo and Biabiany, which certainly do not have the quality or ability to consistently perform and score at the highest level. Coutinho has arrived and can fortunately be a substitute to Sneijder, but he is very inexperienced at this level and will not make an immediate impact.

3. Strengthening of our Rivals
We had the strongest squad in Serie A by far until the final week of the transfer window. Then Roma signed Nicolas Burdisso and Marco Borriello and Milan signed Zlatan Ibrahimovc and Robinho. Roma almost won the scudetto last season taking us to the final game of the season. Although Luca Toni has left they have signed Burdisso permanently, who was a revelation for them last season as well as Adriano (questions marks remain over his fitness and motivation levels) and Borriello making their strike force look very enticing. Milan have played a very good chess game. Appear weak so their opponents do not think they will be key challengers until the closing stages of the transfer window and then they sign two quality players when there are not many quality players available at such a late stage for their rivals to sign in order to compete. If we had decided to move for players earlier in the summer then more quality players would have been available to us, such as Silva, Ozil and Gourcuff, but not in the final week or even the final day of the transfer window. We still have the best overall squad in Serie A, but the gap between us and the rest has narrowed. I predict that Milan will score more goals than us and goals win games. Whether that will be enough for them to end our five year reign over Italian football we shall have to see.