You have no idea how much it delights me to point out the flaws of my mortal enemy.
I’m not referring to a particular person, but the black and blue half of Milan. Team Inter. And their inter-mittent performances in the Serie A.
After 6 matches played, they have only managed 2 wins. Luckily for them both of those victories were at the San Siro. There’s been 2 losses and as many draws. What worries most is that, the losses were consecutive, allowing 7 goals and scoring only one. 2012 was the last time they let in that many goals in back to back games. On that occasion, it was 4 goals in a draw against Palermo and the same amount in a loss to AS Roma. The cries for manager Walter Mazzarri’s head is getting louder.
And I couldn’t agree more vehemently.
I was never a fan of his at Napoli. I’m still not convinced he is the right guy to take Inter back to their glory days. And I’m not just referring to the 2000s when Roberto Mancini led the Nerazzuri to successive league titles, or when a certain Jose Mourinho won them the treble.
But since he took over at Inter, he’s had a 46% win ratio. That’s 23 victories from his 50 matches in charge from May 2013. He was the reason behind Inter’s 5th place finish last season, a vast improvement from the 9th spot they took the year before.
His time at Napoli saw him record a 49% winning ratio. In his 6-year reign at the Sao Paolo, he has only managed to steer the team to 2 cup successes. His best finish at the club was during the season he left, when the Neapolitans were runners-up to none other than Inter. The only other time he guided Napoli to a top 3 finish was in the 2010/11 season.
This, in a team that boasted the likes of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Edinson Cavani and Marek Hamsik. Two of the trio have now left for greener pastures after being chased fervently by clubs that could promise them a more consistent haul of titles and championships. He was in charge during the golden generation of Napoli and yet all he could afford to produce as an end result was the Italian Cup and Italian Super Cup.
He has only just finished his first full season at the San Siro. And he’s finally going to be able to build a team of his players. This season he’s bolstered the squad with Yann M’Vila, Dani Osvaldo and Nemanja Vidic. Not necessarily your Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wesley Sneijders of the football fraternity. But enough to do the job? They have not delivered as expected.
And Inter are not Napoli. Since the departure of their most successful boss, they have hired and fired 6 men in 4 seasons. And rather unfortunately Mazzarri could find out sooner rather than later, especially if he fails to stop the slide, that the directors in the north of Italy have far less patience than in the southern regions.
Ironically, Inter play host to Napoli after the international weekend in a must-win match for Mazzari to save his job and, the vultures have started circling….
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