Blog Archives
Source: With Lucio's Departure, Ranocchia Will Stay
There was a time when Andrea Ranocchia really thought of leaving Inter, even on loan. With Lucio, Samuel and Chivu, he found himself the bench more often than the field. “When do I play if there guys are already there,” the former Genoa player said. But after few months, the situation has changed, not directly related to his will. Lucio, in fact, through his agent, has said that he wanted leave by terminating the contract with Inter.
SerieA: Inter 2-1 Cesena Match Report by @siamak_j
Inter – Cesena Match Report by Siamak J.
On a sunny and pleasant Sunday afternoon in Milan, Inter scored two and conceded one as Cesena lost the battle on the Giuseppe Meazza. After having won in Udine in the mid-week fixture, the highly desirable third place in the Serie A was still reachable for Inter as Lazio surprisingly lost away to Novara. Before Sunday’s game, the Nerazzurri were on a string of five consecutive games without losing. A string of games that began when the up-and-coming Andrea Stramaccioni took over as the replacement for Claudio Ranieri on the Inter bench. Following the 2-2 draw in Rome between AS Roma and Napoli in the Saturday night fixture, Inter were fifth with 52 points earned, while Napoli were fourth with 55 points after 35 games – on the same tally as third placed Lazio, who played Udinese on Sunday night.
Like this:
SerieA: Udinese 1-3 Inter, UCL hopes reignited for Inter
After the bore draw against Fiorentina last weekend Inter’s chances of securing the third place finish were almost finished but just a few days later the Nerazzurri proved their credentials by securing an important away win at the Stadio Friuli against Udinese. This combined with both Lazio and Roma losing their matches means that Inter are now in sixth place on equal points with fifth place Udinese, both having 52 points just three points behind third placed Lazio with both teams yet to play against the Biancocelesti in the last four games of the season.
A much needed win and it all happened in the first half of the match with Udinese going on the offensive from the kickoff they were rewarded early on when defender Danilo struck a wonderful shot from the edge of the area that flew past Julio Cesar and ricocheted off the upright to cross the line and put the Bianconeri ahead.
SerieA: Fiorentina 0-0 Inter, Cesar saves penalty and the day
The Serie A week 33 match against Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi was Inter’s first since the untimely death of Piermario Morosini last weekend and before kickoff both teams stood united in a minute silence to honour his memory.
This was really a must win match for Inter if they were to keep up the pressure on finishing in the last Champions League spot of third, and everything seemed to be in their favour as Fiorentina have had an even more disappointing season than that of Inter, finding themselves sitting on the edge of safety down the bottom of the table. Inter also were handed the advantage that the Viola were without key players like Amauri who was suspended and Stevan Jovetic who is injured, not only that for reasons unknown to me, Fiorentina coach Delio Rossi decided to have Riccardo Montolivo on the bench instead of on the pitch. This combined with the fact they were playing two teenage and fairly unexperienced center backs meant that Inter started the game with a huge advantage over the home side.
How To Salvage a Sinking Ship
In the aftermath of yesterdays umpteenth loss of our beloved Inter a lot of things are going through most people’s head. Everybody has a different view of how to fix things. There are calls to fire Ranieri, while at the same time the people who wanted Gasperini fired before the season even started are giving the coach a huge leash. A lot of people have given up on this season and are looking for the eternal cure of the summer expecting the team to be fixed and looking for available coaches and players and dreaming of the phoenix rising from the ashes. The press understandably are just waiting for Moratti to snap and fire his coach since this has been the way he naturally does things.
I, on the other hand, have a much simpler solution to this entire mess that will give the players, coaches, and fans huge motivation for the rest of the season. The best way to fix this situation is for Massimo Moratti to tell Claudio Ranieri that if you expect to be here only play the players you expect in your starting eleven next season. Simple! No more Stankovic because he is obviously unable to complete a simple pass anymore. No more Chivu because its obvious by now that the team will not renew his contract. No more Maicon because well now he has a knee problem and will not play and he is not as productive as seasons past. Zarate? Forlan? Milito? Pazzini? Decide who is the long-term solution and stick with him and change the teams playing style to reflect that. Don’t play Pazzini and expect to pass him the ball outside the box and have him do something with it. Emphasise wing play and cross the ball to him 10 times a game.
Like this:
SerieA: Inter 0-3 Bologna, Another embarrassing defeat for ‘il Biscione’
Coming in to this game against Bologna at the Giuseppe Meazza there was, despite recent form, a confidence that we could turn things around and gain a fairly easy three points. After all the Bolognese team aren’t having the best of seasons themselves and having not played a game for two weeks (their last two games were postponed due to bad weather) were likely to be a bit rusty, this was a must win the situation for Inter and all the odds were in their favor.
This wasn’t to be though as Claudio Ranieri yet again ‘tinkered’ with his tactics and this time fielded a 4-2-3-1 formation, which like last week’s 4-3-2-1 I am a big fan of. These tactics themselves aren’t the problem as in both games Inter held on to a vast majority of the possession throughout the 90 minutes, the problems on the pitch are coming from all the constant changes that Ranieri is making. He needs to stick with a formation, quickly find his optimal starting eleven and only make substitutions during the game when they are desperately needed not just when the whim takes him. These substitutions also need to show a lot more understanding of what’s happening on the pitch as he never seems to make the changes that are so obvious to the rest of us.
Like this:
SerieA: Inter 4-4 Palermo, Goals galore in the snow
I can’t believe it! Last night I was unable to watch the match and typically it seems to have been an unmissable game with ‘il Principe’ scoring all four of Inter’s goals, a feat last acheived by Christian ‘Bobo’ Vieri on the 1st December 2002 when the Nerazzurri beat Brescia 4-0.
Despite the incredable performance at the attacking end of the pitch it seems that our defence and Julio Cesar in goal had a nightmare game letting in just as many goals including a hattrick from Miccoli meaning that we take just one point from this home game 
SerieA: Cesena 0-1 Inter, Rannochia’s header secures three more points
For the third time in a row Ranieri’s Inter were victorious continuing the fantastic come back that has seen the Nerazzurri rise from sixteenth place to now sit in fifth with 23 points after winning five of our last six matches, ok so by the end of the evening we could be in sixth, if Napoli beat Roma tonight. But even if that’s the case the recent revival of Inter proves we’re still a force to be reckoned with and even if it’s a long shot we are still in the running for the Scudetto and more realistically Champions league qualification.
The home side lined up with a formation of 4-4-1-1 that consisted of Francesco Antonioli in goal, a back line of Gianluca Comotto, Steve Von Bergen, Guillermo Rodriguez and Maurice Lauro. Their four man midfield saw Luke Ceccarelli, Marco Parolo, Roberto Guana and Antonio Candreva take to the field, and the spearhead of the home team came in the form of Eder who was playing in front of their second striker Adrian Mutu.
Claudio Ranieri’s Inter again started with his favoured 4-4-2, which I seriously dislike but at least it’s getting results, Ahead of Julio Cesar in goal we had Lucio and Andrea Ranocchia replacing Walter Samuel who was being rested on the bench, the central defence was flanked by Maicon on the right and Yuto Nagatomo on the left. Disappointingly Andrea Poli was missing from the midfield lineup but Phillipe Coutinho and Javier Zanetti took up positions on the wings with Thiago Motta and Esteban Cambiasso working as the engine of the team in the center. And once again Ranieri saw fit to pair up Giampaolo Pazzini and Diego Milito up front much to everyones surprise considering that we had a fit Diego Forlan on the bench, though using this combination did mean that Milito reached 100 Serie A games in his career.
SerieA: Inter 0-1 Udinese, Ranieri’s tinkering finally costs us
I had high expectations about the week 14 match against Udinese this weekend, from experience of watching Inter throughout the years I know as well as anyone that Udinese always make life difficult for us and this clash was going to be no different with the Zebrette up in the title fight while the Nerazzurri as we all know are pushing hard to get themselves involved up top of the table but are suffering from a lack of confidence that has effected our entire league season so far.
In my opinion before the match Claudio Ranieri should have been giving his players a bit of a confidence boost to ensure we went into the match with the right desire to win but instead during his pre match press conference he was full of praise for Udinese instead which was exactly not what the Inter players needed to hear, and I believe that instead of boosting their confidence this will have had more of a damaging effect on the team morale.
SerieA: Siena 0-1 Inter, Castaignos goal brings home the points
Week 13 of the 2011/12 Serie A season saw Inter return to the Stadio Artemio Franchi where in 2010 they were crowned Scudetto champions in their treble winning year, how things have changed, as this season’s fixture has Inter desperate for wins in an attempt to climb the table after the worst campaign start ever.
For almost 90 minutes this game had bore draw written all over it and to be fair that was the result the plucky Siena deserved as they played well and did everything possible to ensure the Inter players couldn’t get too many chances on goal. I’m not saying Inter were terrible, we kept control of the game for the majority of the 90 minutes but in my opinion there just seemed to be something missing that would bring a bit of excitement to the game, maybe this was down to the lack of atmosphere in the stadium that you get in the Meazza but I feel it had more to do with the mediocre display shown by the majority of the Nerazzurri players. This of course wasn’t helped by some extremely disappointing decisions made by the Inter boss concerning substitutions (which I’ll go in to shortly.)
