Mercato Team (Ausilio, Marotta, & Co.) and Strategies

[Il Drago]

Reduce wages and amortisation, try to increase revenues (much harder because of COVID times, obviously, but things like CL knockouts make a big difference).

Our squad annual cost in 2020 was 266million, this year we're at 167 million. That's a huge trim already, and tbh, I think this is a better squad.


We need investment to improve, but our amortisation went from 273m per year in 2019 to 91m this year, and our wages went from 162 in 2020 peak to 124 now.


As I've said for a few seasons, with signing longer term players like Barella, Skriniar, Bastoni, etc, who are long-term parts of the squad, then as we renew them and extend contracts, our costs decrease rapidly and give us more room for investment.


I dont know how we'll raise the money to pay Oaktree/buy a new stadium, to be honest, but Suning have taken massive steps towards getting us to be more financially healthy. There's more to do - Lazaro, Dalbert, Sensir, Salcedo, Dzeko, stand out as examples where we could shave another 28mil in annual costs without any real impact.

Add in Correa and you'd get that to almost a quarter of our annual cost.

We don't only need investments to improve. We need investments even to simply replace those with expiring contracts and maintain current level of the team. Dzeko, Skriniar, De Vrij, D'Ambrosio, Darmian, Handanovic, Gagliardini, probably Acerbi. Even if we assume Skriniar will extend, Gagliardini will be offered a new contract because he's cheap and we are already set in GK with Onana we still need to replace the rest. How are we going to do it if there's no money to spend?

This summer we're even struggling to replace Ranocchia, we replaced Vidal with another veteran and Sanchez with Lukaku on loan. Only short term solutions but no clear plan for the future. We only made investments with players who are still under the radar but they haven't earned coach trust yet. And we were lucky enough Suning didn't insist on sales this summer else things would have been even worse.

This thing isn't sustainable. We are still far from achieving self-financing.

 

[.h.]

Gosens still cost over 30M. It's not like he was some shrewd market opportunity.

This isn't England. It's not like we're struggling to be financially viable because we're blowing through billions in shared revenues. We're playing in a league where there are two financially viable clubs - one that is the play thing of a billionaire, and the other that was taken over by a hedge fund that decided to wave its magic wand and clear all the club's debts. Until one of those things happens to us we're fighting the impossible fight.

Gosens was like 15mil no?

Either way, what you guys are fantasizing for as a get-out-of-jail-free card just doesnt exist. If a new owner comes in, no matter what the valuation they buy Inter at, they'll need to sink like another 500mil into the club just to sort things out if you dont want a world of "cutting costs". You can sit and fantasize about a new sugar daddy owner all you want, but its not like people are queuing up to buy this club. In the mean time, Suning are doing the right thing - cut costs, try to get the club back to somewhat healthy, and use that to attract a buyer.

The only thing that's worse than buying a club losing 100mil a year is buying a club losing 200 mil a year.

 

[.h.]

We don't only need investments to improve. We need investments even to simply replace those with expiring contracts and maintain current level of the team. Dzeko, Skriniar, De Vrij, D'Ambrosio, Darmian, Handanovic, Gagliardini, probably Acerbi. Even if we assume Skriniar will extend, Gagliardini will be offered a new contract because he's cheap and we are already set in GK with Onana we still need to replace the rest. How are we going to do it if there's no money to spend?

This summer we're even struggling to replace Ranocchia, we replaced Vidal with another veteran and Sanchez with Lukaku on loan. Only short term solutions but no clear plan for the future. We only made investments with players who are still under the radar but they haven't earned coach trust yet. And we were lucky enough Suning didn't insist on sales this summer else things would have been even worse.

This thing isn't sustainable. We are still far from achieving self-financing.

At the end of this coming season, we can free up another 40-50mil of annual cost. Add onto that reduced amortisation, and things will continue to improve.

Dzeko adds a little to the first team but not lots. DAmbro and Darmian are useful and will need replacing, but any replacement is likely to be better than them. Handanovic is already replaced. I think Skriniar and De Vrij will stay. Gagliardini adds little as well.

A few intelligent purchases like Asllani and things could look much rosier.

 

[ADRossi]

Gosens was like 15mil no?

Either way, what you guys are fantasizing for as a get-out-of-jail-free card just doesnt exist. If a new owner comes in, no matter what the valuation they buy Inter at, they'll need to sink like another 500mil into the club just to sort things out if you dont want a world of "cutting costs". You can sit and fantasize about a new sugar daddy owner all you want, but its not like people are queuing up to buy this club. In the mean time, Suning are doing the right thing - cut costs, try to get the club back to somewhat healthy, and use that to attract a buyer.

The only thing that's worse than buying a club losing 100mil a year is buying a club losing 200 mil a year.

No one is claiming to want a sugar daddy. I want an owner who actually understands the politics of owning an Italian club. An owner who will take concrete steps towards building a new stadium AND has the money to actually build it.

Until we get a stadium we're all wasting our time.

 

[.h.]

Right, so the answer to our situation is to find a new owner who spends 1 billion on the club, another 500 million on keeping us afloat, then another 500m on the stadium?

 

[ADRossi]

Right, so the answer to our situation is to find a new owner who spends 1 billion on the club, another 500 million on keeping us afloat, then another 500m on the stadium?

In a perfect world we would systemically change the way we do things. We would have better youth scouts who actually find promising players under 20. We would develop them. We would force the manager to integrate promising youngsters, like Casadei, into the squad, rather than wasting money on Mkhitaryan. We would keep wages down while still competing and earning UCL revenue.

The problem with this Dortmund model? They never actually win anything. But at least that would make us an attractive takeover target.

 

[.h.]

Bingo.

So, what are we doing? We're trying to get our best youth players out on loan to clubs where they'll actually play. We're signing better, younger players (than expensive oldies) like Asllani, Barella, Bastoni, Dumfries, Hakimi, etc. We are trying our best to keep wages down, while still competing in the UCL revenue.

You've pretty much just described exactly what we're doing. As discussed in other threads, Inter is clearly not the place to develop a raw 20 year old - its fine for Bastonis and Asllanis who have the maturity, but I'd rather spend 15mil on an Asllani than 3x5m unknown 18 year olds, and I think we all would agree with that.

Mkhi is fine - he's come in at comparatively low wage, with growth decree, no transfer fee, and a break clause if he's ass. I dont know how anyone can complain about that. We'll see how many minutes he gets by the end of the season, but as with all these things, I'd wager it wont be enough to meaningfully develop a player like, e.g., Casedei

 

[ADRossi]

Bingo.

So, what are we doing? We're trying to get our best youth players out on loan to clubs where they'll actually play. We're signing better, younger players (than expensive oldies) like Asllani, Barella, Bastoni, Dumfries, Hakimi, etc. We are trying our best to keep wages down, while still competing in the UCL revenue.

You've pretty much just described exactly what we're doing. As discussed in other threads, Inter is clearly not the place to develop a raw 20 year old - its fine for Bastonis and Asllanis who have the maturity, but I'd rather spend 15mil on an Asllani than 3x5m unknown 18 year olds, and I think we all would agree with that.

Mkhi is fine - he's come in at comparatively low wage, with growth decree, no transfer fee, and a break clause if he's ass. I dont know how anyone can complain about that. We'll see how many minutes he gets by the end of the season, but as with all these things, I'd wager it wont be enough to meaningfully develop a player like, e.g., Casedei

Barella cost 40M. Bastoni cost 40M (with some fun accounting tricks). Hakimi cost over 30M. The last "big money" transfer we made was Correa, 12 months ago, and how'd that one turn out?

With so many players coming off the books next summer we're going to have to invest heavily to replace them. Or we can continue to spend cheaply on declining players and hope we still perform at the same level. We can keep using Asllani as an example, until we realize he's played twenty minutes for the club and isn't exactly a success story (yet).

If you don't see why this strategy is destined to fail, let's just leave it here.

Also, I was definitely wrong on the Gosens fee.

 

[.h.]

We're talking about our need to replace a bunch of players who actually add very little. Yeah, Asllani has played 20 minutes, but that's over 2 games. If that's the same situation in 3-4 months, then yeah, I agree, it didnt work.

Re prices on barella/bastoni, that's exactly my point. I'd rather spend a bit more on fewer players, spending a lot on a large number of players got us into this mess in the early 10s anyway


And comes back to my main point, what exactly do you guys want us to do, other than find someone who wants to pull 2 billion out of his ass for a hobby despite the backdrop of recessions, high inflation, p/e ratios decreasing rapidly, etc?

 

[Il Drago]

If you want to use a success story of a smart investment in austerity era it's Dumfries. Purchased for just 12m and now a year later he's valued at over 30m. Coincidentally (not really) he was the only one who joined from outside Serie A.

But of course we want our players to be "Serie A proven" so we don't do that often. Instead we either go for unproven talents or declining experienced players of the league because we can't afford established talents anymore.

 

[.h.]

There's always a premium on 'proven within the country you are moving to'. Same is true in England, Italy, etc. Reducing the risk that someone wont work out for culture/etc is worth a lot. We need to see how they work out, but I'm comfortable with Asllani and Bellanova as being quite interesting transfers.

 

[crzdcolombian]

Chelsea just got wrecked..... Skriniar is not safe

 

[Corrode]

Acerbi is waiting at the background😆

 

[CafeCordoba]

In general I agree with @.h. regarding the numbers. We are going to right direction.

However there are few ifs and buts.

Zhangs are doing the downsizing gradually. Bit by bit, without losing the sporting results. So far it has worked well (for one year). After Scudetto, we finished 2nd with 2 trophies + one CL knockdown round. This season it can be worse, we might not get any of those (or we might get all those, or even Scudetto).

So, the results are okay. But how long can we sustain this, gradually downsizing while trying to keep up with the results. We need to sign veterans for that (for the coach) and that will only hinder the self-financing target. It takes more years compared to doing it the Milan way.

Trying to win and trying to get to self-financing is simply not possible in football these days. My issue with Zhangs is the lack of a viable plan. I didn't even talk about the stadium project and the Oaktree loan due date looming in 2024.

Optimistic prediction by me is they will sell once we get the stadium deal signed when the buyers can be sure they have the stadium locked up so they can draft their business plans accordingly (how could anyone make money with Inter without a stadium?). I'm ready for the Milan route with some fund owning us, than this slow, gradual downsizing.

 

[.h.]

Yeah, the important thing is the sporting results stick.if they don't we are in trouble. We are making big bets on Bellanova and Asllani for example, but I feel far more confident in that than Nainggolan etc tbh.

 

[CafeCordoba]

Remember next summer we sell someone big. Let's see how we're gonna replace him, whoever that is.

 

[YoramG]

Remember next summer we sell someone big. Let's see how we're gonna replace him, whoever that is.

But do we? As far as I understand we needed to make 60m, and we've just copped ~35m from Pinamonti and Casadei. 25m can't be impossible to make between Correa, Dimarco, Agoume, Carboni, Zanotti, Vanheusden, Esposito, Satriano, etc. etc.

 

[ADRossi]

Pinamonti was only 6M plusvalenza.

 

[CafeCordoba]

But do we? As far as I understand we needed to make 60m, and we've just copped ~35m from Pinamonti and Casadei. 25m can't be impossible to make between Correa, Dimarco, Agoume, Carboni, Zanotti, Vanheusden, Esposito, Satriano, etc. etc.

Maybe but we spent something too. 14m (with bonuses 16m) Asllani, 8m Lukaku, Bellanova 3m and possibly 7m more if we use the option. That's 25-32m.

We sold also Di Gregorio and that one CB to France so we made like 42m. There are lot to sell still. It's closer to 50m than 25m what we need to sell.

IF they calculate the sales like that.

 

[YoramG]

Pinamonti was only 6M plusvalenza.

Did we ever get clarification if it needed to be plusvalenza, was it just raising 60m for cashflow matters? God this shit is exhausting.