Antonio Conte

[crzdcolombian]

Yea, I won't be mad with r16 qualification next season given that we win scudetto this year. People might argue that we don't have the squad depth for quarter finals, but we definitely have the squad depth for r16 qualification.

We have 9 really great players. Well 8 since the fans and management want to get rid of Bro for some insane reason. Persic and Eriksen we could def improve on. Our bench is utter shit especially when considering their wages.

If Sensi goes back to his form of last season he should bench Eriksen. Still hasn’t done anything all season. Sanchez does ok when he comes in but for 7.5 million that is more than 2-3 starters combined.

 

[NimAraya]

Yea, I won't be mad with r16 qualification next season given that we win scudetto this year. People might argue that we don't have the squad depth for quarter finals, but we definitely have the squad depth for r16 qualification.

We have the squad for the quarter finals. People are just making excuses for the coach's fuckups.

There are ZERO excuses for the way Inter got eliminated from the CL. But some people fight toes and nails to make excuses for Conte, and to the lesser extend for Spalletti, to justify why Inter didn't reach where the more inferior teams managed to do.

But Inter is winning NOW so all is sound for now, and Conte deserve his 12 million paycheck just for staying at top of the league in the worst Serie A season I have ever witnessed.

 

[ADRossi]

We have the squad for the quarter finals. People are just making excuses for the coach's fuckups.

There are ZERO excuses for the way Inter got eliminated from the CL. But some people fight toes and nails to make excuses for Conte, and to the lesser extend for Spalletti, to justify why Inter didn't reach where the more inferior teams managed to do.

But Inter is winning NOW so all is sound for now, and Conte deserve his 12 million paycheck just for staying at top of the league in the worst Serie A season I have ever witnessed.

Lol this is the worst Serie A season you have witnessed? When did you become a fan, 2018? The league was a complete joke from 2012-2017. Juventus were accumulating 100 points in some seasons for Christ's sake. There were no Scudetto competitors other than Juventus.

This forum is ridiculous. We haven't won a trophy in a decade and people are downplaying the position we're in. You need to crawl before you can walk when you've become a club with a culture of losing and mediocrity as toxic as ours.

 

[K.I.]

Lol this is the worst Serie A season you have witnessed? When did you become a fan, 2018? The league was a complete joke from 2012-2017. Juventus were accumulating 100 points in some seasons for Christ's sake. There were no Scudetto competitors other than Juventus.

This forum is ridiculous. We haven't won a trophy in a decade and people are downplaying the position we're in. You need to crawl before you can walk when you've become a club with a culture of losing and mediocrity as toxic as ours.

Those years were down to a change in ownership and terrible players getting signed.

You can argue that being 1st is great compared to previous years but it's par for the course given the squad and the performances of the other top teams in the league.

It also has nothing to do with the failure in Europe, which even though isn't something new for Inter but again given the group in both years the last 16 should have been the minimum.

 

[NimAraya]

Lol this is the worst Serie A season you have witnessed? When did you become a fan, 2018? The league was a complete joke from 2012-2017. Juventus were accumulating 100 points in some seasons for Christ's sake. There were no Scudetto competitors other than Juventus.

This forum is ridiculous. We haven't won a trophy in a decade and people are downplaying the position we're in. You need to crawl before you can walk when you've become a club with a culture of losing and mediocrity as toxic as ours.

Imagine what joke of a league this is when that one horse winner who managed to accumulate 100 points in some seasons are now trying to stay in top 4 in a season that the whole Italy has one team left only in Europa League.

Sure, this forum is a joke, that's why I don't bother myself coming here much anymore. Just win some matches and all is safe and sound. Lose some and all hell breaks loose.

People were downplaying Mancini's Scudettos for years in here, because they said it was thx to Calciopoli. But I've seen more quality back then than I'm seeing in this league now. So no, I didn't become a fan in 2018.

FYI, I'm not trying to downplay Inter winning it. I'm saying those who are acting like Conte is doing an AMAZING job and worth every penny he gets for keeping Inter in this position, in THIS league are just exaggerating.

 

[Glass box]

Too much mental gymnastics, where to start. Chelsea, Tottenham in the mix...wtf. Maybe we should be opening special threads and excercise all of these mental gymnastics, it might turn out right.

 

[varmin]

Imagine what joke of a league this is when that one horse winner who managed to accumulate 100 points in some seasons are now trying to stay in top 4 in a season that the whole Italy has one team left only in Europa League.

Last season Italy also had had 3 teams on the round of 16 and the only exception was Atalanta, who went to quarter-finals, but they had beaten Valencia not a top club. Jube had choked as usual against Lyon and Napoli had been defeated by Barca. This year was pretty much the same with Jube lost to Porto and Lazio (Bayren), but Atalanta had much harder opponent than Valencia.

FYI, I'm not trying to downplay Inter winning it. I'm saying those who are acting like Conte is doing an AMAZING job and worth every penny he gets for keeping Inter in this position, in THIS league are just exaggerating.

Conte is doing amazing job (not only him. Marotta has also done great job for the building of solid team). This season after 27 games we have 66 points, compare to season 2019-20 - 58p. and season 2018-19 - 50p. This is 16 points progress in two seasons. For example Juventus are quite opposite, going down. This season: 55 points/ 27 games. Season 2019-20 - 66p. and season 2018-19 - 75p. As you can see we are on par with Jubentus last season, so there is no need to downgrade the coach.

 

[CafeCordoba]

Yea, I won't be mad with r16 qualification next season given that we win scudetto this year. People might argue that we don't have the squad depth for quarter finals, but we definitely have the squad depth for r16 qualification.

Yeah, and this whole conversation of squad depth or squad material for whichever target level in CL knockouts is IMO way too binary. There are always many teams which go out before their "expected" target level in CL, for whatever reason and it's usually a mix of many things, not always just coach doing a bad job.

Regarding Inter, I'd say we are only beginning our CL push. Which means we need many years to gather the experience playing those knockout matches with our core (only few in our core have exp at all from those matches), before we should DEMAND some kind of relevant success in that competition IMO. Club like Juve is (or maybe was) at different level in that regard because they've been playing knockouts for YEARS. Their core is however changing now so they might need to learn it again. Let's see.

 

[Il Drago]

Yeah, and this whole conversation of squad depth or squad material for whichever target level in CL knockouts is IMO way too binary. There are always many teams which go out before their "expected" target level in CL, for whatever reason and it's usually a mix of many things, not always just coach doing a bad job.

Regarding Inter, I'd say we are only beginning our CL push. Which means we need many years to gather the experience playing those knockout matches with our core (only few in our core have exp at all from those matches), before we should DEMAND some kind of relevant success in that competition IMO. Club like Juve is (or maybe was) at different level in that regard because they've been playing knockouts for YEARS. Their core is however changing now so they might need to learn it again. Let's see.

Yeah. The draw is way more important than squad depth. For example, even a much better squad depth wouldn't make a difference if you faced Bayern in r16. Like Mourinho has said many times you also need luck in CL. In recent years we have seen Lyon, Leipzig, Ajax, Roma, Monaco in semi-finals. Was it a matter of great squad depth? Of course not. It was a combination of a quality starting lineup and some favorable circumstances.

The minimum of expectations for next season should be r16. Anything further than this will depend on the draw.

 

[Universe]

I disagree and I think it's even more straightforward than that.

It comes down to simply: don't be shit and win a game. We failed to do that, twice, against a team that was dismantled 10-0 on aggregate by a pot 4 Monchengladbach. You can talk about draw, squad depth, pot/seeding, luck, whatever. At the end of the day there are no excuses for not beating Shakhtar.

 

[.h.]

IF we win the league, I expect us to make the R16, anything less than that is a definite failure. I want to see our group draw first, because the CL Pots can still be quite messy - its likely the top English team will win their league, Barca might actually be quite weak next season (Messi shock if he leaves) so if they win the league, that means we can face some strong Spanish sides, etc.

Let's win the league first and then worry about next season

The one good thing about this team is that the core of it (barring GK, LWB) has a few years together if they all want, so they can learn and grow together. It's not a team assembled for the short term, as such, but clearly GK will be a fairly impactful change and we need to make sure we get the right replacement keeper

 

[varmin]

I disagree and I think it's even more straightforward than that.

It comes down to simply: don't be shit and win a game. We failed to do that, twice, against a team that was dismantled 10-0 on aggregate by a pot 4 Monchengladbach. You can talk about draw, squad depth, pot/seeding, luck, whatever. At the end of the day there are no excuses for not beating Shakhtar.

Same team won two times against Real.

 

[Il Drago]

I disagree and I think it's even more straightforward than that.

It comes down to simply: don't be shit and win a game. We failed to do that, twice, against a team that was dismantled 10-0 on aggregate by a pot 4 Monchengladbach. You can talk about draw, squad depth, pot/seeding, luck, whatever. At the end of the day there are no excuses for not beating Shakhtar.

I was mostly referring to the KO. There are no excuses for our group stage eliminations. Especially this season. We didn't get eliminated from top sides with great squad depth. We got eliminated from Gladbach, who have an extremely thin squad and are currently sitting 10th in Bundesliga, and Shakhtar, a team we had beat 5-0 only few months ago with a relative worse squad. Our CL campaign was an utter failure and there are no excuses for it.

 

[.h.]

yep,the CL was a failure this season, but I'm hopeful/confident that the current Inter we see on the pitch would at least qualify. Our defense is now stable after a rollercoaster start to the season. We've finally got our midfield resolved, our strikers are actually playing well.

Lautaro was 5 in 6 in the CL last year, Lukaku 2 in 5. This year Lukaku 4 in 5, Lautaro 1 in 6.

Hopefully the best version of both of them show up next season.

 

[wera]

Their attack was strong enough but nothing special honestly. Adding Moura and Lamela there but slotting Alli at midfield seems a bit odd. This is like saying is Perisic an attacker but Politano and Keita Balde were midfielders or something like that.

Lucas Moura is a player they wanted to get rid of and he single handedly led them to the final against all odds. Lamela was also a player they wanted to get rid of. Llorente had a hoof ball role. Kane was their only option and Son was very good, but not the same player that people admire in the past 1.5 seasons.



Dude, if we had Alli, Winks, Dier, Sissoko and Wanyama people would be here shouting that they miss Guarin, Kovacic and Hernanes... That's not a quality midfield.

I don't think you're understanding my point. We lack in numbers. In my mind both Spurs and Inter have quality players, just that Inter doesn't have enough players, ergo, depth. Doesn't matter what you feel about Llorente, Lucas or Lamela, having two of these on the bench would mean at least we have some depth in attack.

Same with the players I named in midfield. I'm not saying these players are Iniesta and Xavi, but they are still better than having younglings on the bench or injured players that don't ever feature. We talking about depth.

 

[brehme1989]

I don't think you're understanding my point. We lack in numbers. In my mind both Spurs and Inter have quality players, just that Inter doesn't have enough players, ergo, depth. Doesn't matter what you feel about Llorente, Lucas or Lamela, having two of these on the bench would mean at least we have some depth in attack.

Same with the players I named in midfield. I'm not saying these players are Iniesta and Xavi, but they are still better than having younglings on the bench or injured players that don't ever feature. We talking about depth.

Half of those players you mentioned would be below the pecking order by the likes of Sensi, Vecino and Candreva as much as people whine about our players. That's what you fail to see. These numbers don't mean much because you are giving them a face value that's not really an improvement over ours.

All fanbases shit on a bunch of their players. This doesn't make someone's else bench players any better.
Real Madrid were bitching about Vinicius Junior, Valverde and Jovic for example. Pretty sure some of them would want to replace them with Lamela, Sissoko and Llorente
It's an irrelevant argument because you are simply overrating some players while completely disregarding ours. On the details you will probably find that some of those Spurs ones are better, some not, whatever. It's irrelevant. Our depth was not an issue. And Tottenham didn't have any serious depth to begin with.

 

[Bluenine]

Our CL campaign this season was a disaster. Most of us here have said as much. There are no excuses for failing to go past that group.

However, the success or failure of our season is not entirely dependent on just the CL performance. That is the false narrative being peddled here. If we win the Scudetto, that would be amazing and will be considered a successful season with great credit to the players, the coach and the management. Like ADRossi said, lets not downplay our domestic position or act like winning a Scudetto means nothing.

Anyways, we haven't won anything yet. Perhaps this discussion about whether Conte/Marotta/Players have done well is a bit premature. Lets judge this at the end of the season.

 

[brehme1989]

Ending Juve's decade long dominance despite our financial crisis and wages not paid will be amazing.

Just want to address this as it probably seems like Inter is the only club facing a crisis.

The fact is, we are in one of the better positions in terms of paying our players from top clubs. The only clubs that iirc did not have any concerns from top/wealthy clubs are Man City and Bayern Munchen.
We were prudent enough to have insurance policies in place that helped alleviate the damages. I think only Arsenal also had similar insurance coverage. Our cash flows were just off and our principal shareholder couldn't pump any more money, not even as debt, due to their core operations being hit.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester United iirc all have reduced their players' salaries under Covid [so there is official admission of difficulty] and not that many clubs, whether big or small, are adapting very well to paying on time.

It's just that with Inter there was genuine concern over delays and as usual, more media coverage on bad news.


But all in all, at every level, from top management to the coach and from the players to the cleaners, we handled the pandemic very well.

 

[wera]

I AM NOT DISREGARDING OUR PLAYERS

In my mind both Spurs and Inter have quality players, just that Inter doesn't have enough players, ergo, depth.

So if I'm overrating their players, I'm also overrating our players.

I'd rather have Llorente on the bench as a vice Lukaku than no real vice Lukaku. And so on and so forth. Pinamonti cannot compare to match ready players like Lucas and Lamela, even tho both are far from perfect, it's better to have at least 4 MATCH READY players if you play with 2 attackers. Not really quantum physics.

The whole argument is that we don't have enough players that we would start at least 20 times, especially since 3 of the players we know we can rely on are injured. If Sensi and Vecino were barely ever injured, great, we can always have options from the bench....BUT WE DON'T, because they are made of glass.

In any case, quality is not the same as depth. Some players we have or what that Spurs team had (Gags, Wanyama, Winks) are just utility players. But you need those and how you use them is important. Fucking mongoloids like Muntari, Santon and Balotelli helped won a Trippletta here. Would you rather not have those 3 players in our squad in 2010? Their contributions are noted, even if they weren't really starters compared to other players. It could be that 3 other players would be there in their stead, but having 3 players LESS is where the argument lies. We currently don't have those 3 or 4 that we clearly needed at the start of the season.

And we are lucky that Martinez and Lukaku barely get injured. We could've had a bigger crisis and our Scudetto run could've already ended. Dept

 

[.h.]

couple of things
our 19/20 pro-forma result (e.g. ignoring deferred revenue) was only 3m worse than it would have been without covid. The result was 47mil COVID deferred income (e.g. money that normally would be booked before the 30th of June, but not booked until after because of deferred matches). The continuity policy covered us for 10m matchday losses, where we actually lost 13mil - so -3m is pretty damn good. The rest of it was loss of commercial revenue (IIRC around -50mil).

The result for 20/21 will be much worse though. There's SIXTY MIL of matchday revenue missing (I guess that's quite driven by season tickets and no CL group stages, etc) and our continuity policy, as far as I'm aware, doesnt cover it.

Note that these are not personal forecasts, these statements are straight out of our most recent financial results. The 'benefit' is that the deferred income from 19/20 will help to offset the 20/21 loss of matchday, but either you call 19/20 what it was - a 100m loss, or you pro-forma it to a 55m loss.


RE results - winning the scudetto this season would be an incredible accomplishment.