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

[PHM1605]

As far as remember like 90% of FIFers thought that Thuram is a epic fail after the pre season games. Anyway back then we were linked with Balogun, and people believed that we'll spend like 30-40mln for attacker (including Lukaka). The things changed, and as I've said after the end of mercato, I was happy with spending those money on Pavard, instead of a forward.

Why do you keep inventing fake stories just to defend your grandpas disastrous duos? 90% is bullshit you know, the posts are saved in his thread.

Marcus Thuram

Official. Marcus Thuram signs for Inter Marcus Thuram is quick. He has always been quick, to reach his goals and to overcome any hurdle in his path. To show that he is worth so much more than just the name on the back of his shirt, though he has never forgotten the teachings and example...

forzainterforums.com

Thuram had nothing to do with adding another striker. The French is great for free regardless. Anyone younger was asked to be the 3rd choice.

 

[varmin]

Why do you keep inventing fake stories just to defend your grandpas disastrous duos? 90% is bullshit you know, the posts are saved in his thread.

It's called exaggerating, and was intentionally used. See the comments about Thuram in the preseason games.
My point is in the second part of my comment. Some people wanted Orban, Wahi, Balogun etc, when the rumors say that we will splash 35 mln on a forward.
Your point is that we want precisely Orban for 30 mln is absolutely fake. He was just one of the mentioned names, when the most frequent links were to Morata, Lukaku and somebody else. Now, the name it slips out of my mind.

 

[Il Drago]

It's called exaggerating, and was intentionally used. See the comments about Thuram in the preseason games.
My point is in the second part of my comment. Some people wanted Orban, Wahi, Balogun etc, when the rumors say that we will splash 35 mln on a forward.
Your point is that we want precisely Orban for 30 mln is absolutely fake. He was just one of the mentioned names, when the most frequent links were to Morata, Lukaku and somebody else. Now, the name it slips out of my mind.

Scamacca. That's the one.

 

[CoolMan44]

There's no specific thread for 'loan watch' outside of individual player threads, so has anyone been watching our players on loan this season and can comment on current success of their loan? I think these are the main guys out on loan:

V. Carboni - getting more regular minutes now and has been good whenever I watched him. At first, it looked a bad decision to send him to Monza but given that he's started getting playing time, it could end up being a successful loan.
Oristanio - saw him a few times for Cagliari and seems an interesting talent to watch for. He's also getting decent minutes for Cagliari, scoring a few goals. I would say a fairly successful loan so far.
F. Carboni - unsuccessful loan at Monza as he never played. Looks a starter for Ternana now so hopefully a good loan spell there
Zanotti - seems to be a starter for the 2nd placed team in the Swiss league, so I would guess successful so far?
Vanhausden - looks to be a starter, but have no idea how he's been otherwise
S. Esposito - he has looked very good in the highlights I've watched of Sampdoria. Also voted player of the month in Serie B for December. He seems to be their most important player from what I've read/seen, so looks a successful loan so far.
F. Stankovic - started for Sampdoria, but I don't know performance wise. Successful in terms of him getting playing time.
Francesco Pio Esposito - getting regular minutes for Spezia at a very young age. They don't look a good team though. Scored a couple of goals.
Satriano - 1 goal in the league, 2 goals in the Cup. He doesn't seem to score much but gets regular minutes for a team that is close to CL spots in France.

It seems this season our loan players have had more impressive loan spells than usual. Typically I'm used to our players either not getting enough playing time (Vanhausden loan spells in Italy) or general issues (Esposito loan spell in Belgium, I believe).

 

[varmin]

I've watched couple of games of Oristanio. He has very interesting ability to keep the possession of the ball against 2,3 opponents in tight spaces. But he usually likes to operate wider, near the sidelines. I don't know how he could be inserted in our system right now.

 

[CafeCordoba]

There's no specific thread for 'loan watch' outside of individual player threads, so has anyone been watching our players on loan this season and can comment on current success of their loan? I think these are the main guys out on loan:

V. Carboni - getting more regular minutes now and has been good whenever I watched him. At first, it looked a bad decision to send him to Monza but given that he's started getting playing time, it could end up being a successful loan.
Oristanio - saw him a few times for Cagliari and seems an interesting talent to watch for. He's also getting decent minutes for Cagliari, scoring a few goals. I would say a fairly successful loan so far.
F. Carboni - unsuccessful loan at Monza as he never played. Looks a starter for Ternana now so hopefully a good loan spell there
Zanotti - seems to be a starter for the 2nd placed team in the Swiss league, so I would guess successful so far?
Vanhausden - looks to be a starter, but have no idea how he's been otherwise
S. Esposito - he has looked very good in the highlights I've watched of Sampdoria. Also voted player of the month in Serie B for December. He seems to be their most important player from what I've read/seen, so looks a successful loan so far.
F. Stankovic - started for Sampdoria, but I don't know performance wise. Successful in terms of him getting playing time.
Francesco Pio Esposito - getting regular minutes for Spezia at a very young age. They don't look a good team though. Scored a couple of goals.
Satriano - 1 goal in the league, 2 goals in the Cup. He doesn't seem to score much but gets regular minutes for a team that is close to CL spots in France.

It seems this season our loan players have had more impressive loan spells than usual. Typically I'm used to our players either not getting enough playing time (Vanhausden loan spells in Italy) or general issues (Esposito loan spell in Belgium, I believe).

Good recap, thanks.

None of them are failing too much (quite the opposite) apart from the Franco Carboni earlier, but now he get to the level more fitting to him probably at this stage. It's looking good. Anyway, most probably 1-2 can maybe make to Inter first team some day in the future, the rest are plusvalenza.

 

[.h.]

I wouldnt bet on vanheusden after everything with his injury record tbh

Zanotti is an outsider's bet imho, worth hanging onto for now

clearly V Carboni is worth keeping for time being
Esposito is 50/50 in my mind, lets hope he smashes out the rest of this season

If I had to place bets, I'd be putting money on V Carboni and Stankovic right now.

 

[Besnik]

Esposito is a great prospect, he just needs to get his shit together. It's such a shame if that talent goes down the drain. I really believe him and Carboni can be very special players in the near future. Of course that also depends if they are willing to put stupidity aside and focus on developing as true professionals.

 

[CafeCordoba]

There's no specific thread for 'loan watch' outside of individual player threads, so has anyone been watching our players on loan this season and can comment on current success of their loan? I think these are the main guys out on loan:

V. Carboni - getting more regular minutes now and has been good whenever I watched him. At first, it looked a bad decision to send him to Monza but given that he's started getting playing time, it could end up being a successful loan.
Oristanio - saw him a few times for Cagliari and seems an interesting talent to watch for. He's also getting decent minutes for Cagliari, scoring a few goals. I would say a fairly successful loan so far.
F. Carboni - unsuccessful loan at Monza as he never played. Looks a starter for Ternana now so hopefully a good loan spell there
Zanotti - seems to be a starter for the 2nd placed team in the Swiss league, so I would guess successful so far?
Vanhausden - looks to be a starter, but have no idea how he's been otherwise
S. Esposito - he has looked very good in the highlights I've watched of Sampdoria. Also voted player of the month in Serie B for December. He seems to be their most important player from what I've read/seen, so looks a successful loan so far.
F. Stankovic - started for Sampdoria, but I don't know performance wise. Successful in terms of him getting playing time.
Francesco Pio Esposito - getting regular minutes for Spezia at a very young age. They don't look a good team though. Scored a couple of goals.
Satriano - 1 goal in the league, 2 goals in the Cup. He doesn't seem to score much but gets regular minutes for a team that is close to CL spots in France.

It seems this season our loan players have had more impressive loan spells than usual. Typically I'm used to our players either not getting enough playing time (Vanhausden loan spells in Italy) or general issues (Esposito loan spell in Belgium, I believe).

Btw just checked Franco Carboni played 65mins in his first match so started.

Second match he started aswell (yesterday), scored a goal and played full minutes. So already looking pretty good for him.

 

[Universe]

In our entire squad of 25ish players, we only have something like 15 realistically usable, viable players.

That's the regular XI plus Frattesi, de Vrij, and Augusto - with Darmian/Dumfries being largely interchangeable.

It's blatantly clear that the coach does not trust, nor like, the other substitutes not listed here. Even Frattesi and co. who are the best of the subs, are barely trusted by Inzaghi. This is plainly visible in the enormous disparity between their minutes vs the minutes of the players they are backing up. It's clear we don't have "alternatives" as such, instead, we have clear starters, and a host of largely useless players deemed by Inzaghi as inferior replacements.

This is a massive problem. For one, it give us practically zero tactical flexibility off the bench and the team only gets weaker once we deviate from our starting XI. When our system isn't working, we have few game-changers to inject some pace or creativity. Our only option is to replace the parts with like-for-like, inferior parts. Not even different, just worse.

I don't expect some Man City-esque luxury of rotating Bernardo Silva and Mahrez every game but even given the difficult financial situation it's poor squad building from management and equally poor squad utilization from Inzaghi.

Why relegate Frattesi to the extremely limited role of a Barella sub? He could feasibly cover for BOTH Mkhitaryan and Barella. Why is Asllani constrained to a DM sub? Can't he play CM to backup Mkhitaryan every now and again? Is Klaassen so bad that he can't be trusted to come on in the last 5 mins? Why did we even sign him then? Why run 35 year old Acerbi into the ground and drag the old man out wide in an uncomfortable LCB role when you could easily rotate Bisseck there? Why limit Bisseck to a one-position backup when he would get more minutes and add more value as a 2 or 3 position backup? Why did we spend €7m (big money for us) on a player who is effectively our fucking FOURTH choice RWB?

And I haven't even touched on the topic of youth because that's another massive indictment in itself. All I'll say on that is look how much value Juve and Milan are squeezing out by keeping some youth in the mix. Meanwhile, we act as if putting a youth on for the last 5 mins of a game is instantly game-losing. Our youth team is currently 1st place in the Primavera Campeonato btw but I digress.

The bigger picture is that it's simply unsustainable to fight on multiple fronts with this paper thin squad. A common denominator among title-winning teams is proportionate value added by backups and our backups are simply not adding enough. Like I said, this is partly due to the backups themselves being shit (poor recruitment) and partly due to the manager who is famously inflexible.

Normally, in a championship side you would have your best XI giving an 80% contribution with the remaining 20% shared over 5-10 backup and rotation players. We're currently going for a 99% output from the same XI with the remaining 1% scraps being fed to 2 or 3 players. It's completely untenable.

There's 7 days left in the mercato and I'm going on record as saying unless we miraculously sign a half decent forward and another actually usable mid to replace Sensi, we're not winning this title. In other words, I think we've lost the title.

 

[Kramerica Industries]

I mean, we're literally one Lautaro injury away from being completely Grade A-fucked. We already saw what happened when we didn't have him for two games and that was against the Lecce's and Genoa's of the world.

Look at Milan on Saturday. The tying goals were scored by Jovic and Okafor, two substitutes. Neither of them are normal starters for them, but between them they've got eight goals in Serie A this season. Our backup CF's have scored one goal between them in the league this year. Imagine bringing Alexis and Arnautovic on with a 2-1 deficit and expecting them to score the goals to overturn the result. LOL, not happening. We paid more for those two than Milan did for Okafor and Jovic, btw, so either a big scouting win for Milan or big scouting loss for us, depending on how you want to look at it.

As touched on, there's just too much deadweight in the squad. Not defensively, that's our best area in the squad by some distance. We actually have both starters and legitimate cover there when we need to rotate. De Vrij should be playing more to give Acerbi proper rest, and Darmian shouldn't be having to play so much, but we can actually run (when fully fit) a unit of Dimarco (Augusto)/Bastoni (Acerbi/Augusto)/Acerbi (De Vrij)/Pavard (Bisseck)/Dumfries (Darmian) and it all kinda works. Yay for splashing our meager winter window money on a seemingly surplus-player* right now, but I guess that's a different topic. Our midfield is fucking pathetic. The starting trio is fantastic and has been this entire season, yet we backed them entering this season with Frattesi, Sensi, Agoumé, Klaasen, and Asllani...beyond Frattesi who even he can't get rotational starts in the league, that's an entire midfield depth full of players Inzaghi clearly doesn't/didn't trust. Two of them are gone or set to be gone, neither of them have been replaced in any way, and looking at the very short-term, we're playing a tough away game on Sunday against a team in a CL spot right now with literally one midfielder available off the bench, and it's Davy fuckin' Klaasen who's that guy. Our midfield beyond the starters is Frattesi and a bag of magic beans. It's absolutely pathetic. You can't expect to compete for a Scudetto when that's what you give your manager to work with.

We have the best XI in Italy, but we don't have the deepest team, and that's going to be the difference in the end. That and Juve having had the lighter schedule thanks to no European commitments. And we only have ourselves to blame for building such a paper-thin squad. Unless we win the Juve game in a couple weeks and at least give ourselves a little margin for error, there's a <10% chance we're winning the Scudetto this season. I don't see how it's possible.

*I mean, really, if I gave an O/U of 150 minutes in Serie A for Tajon Buchanan, who here is taking the over on that bet?

 

[CoolMan44]

I mean, we're literally one Lautaro injury away from being completely Grade A-fucked. We already saw what happened when we didn't have him for two games and that was against the Lecce's and Genoa's of the world.

Look at Milan on Saturday. The tying goals were scored by Jovic and Okafor, two substitutes. Neither of them are normal starters for them, but between them they've got eight goals in Serie A this season. Our backup CF's have scored one goal between them in the league this year. Imagine bringing Alexis and Arnautovic on with a 2-1 deficit and expecting them to score the goals to overturn the result. LOL, not happening. We paid more for those two than Milan did for Okafor and Jovic, btw, so either a big scouting win for Milan or big scouting loss for us, depending on how you want to look at it.

As touched on, there's just too much deadweight in the squad. Not defensively, that's our best area in the squad by some distance. We actually have both starters and legitimate cover there when we need to rotate. De Vrij should be playing more to give Acerbi proper rest, and Darmian shouldn't be having to play so much, but we can actually run (when fully fit) a unit of Dimarco (Augusto)/Acerbi (De Vrij)/Pavard (Bisseck)/Dumfries (Darmian) and it all kinda works. Yay for splashing our meager winter window money on a seemingly surplus-player* right now, but I guess that's a different topic. Our midfield is fucking pathetic. The starting trio is fantastic and has been this entire season, yet we backed them entering this season with Frattesi, Sensi, Agoumé, Klaasen, and Asllani...beyond Frattesi who even he can't get rotational starts in the league, that's an entire midfield depth full of players Inzaghi clearly doesn't/didn't trust. Two of them are gone or set to be gone, neither of them have been replaced in any way, and looking at the very short-term, we're playing a tough away game on Sunday against a team in a CL spot right now with literally one midfielder available off the bench, and it's Davy fuckin' Klaasen who's that guy. Our midfield beyond the starters is Frattesi and a bag of magic beans. It's absolutely pathetic. You can't expect to compete for a Scudetto when that's what you give your manager to work with.

We have the best XI in Italy, but we don't have the deepest team, and that's going to be the difference in the end. That and Juve having had the lighter schedule thanks to no European commitments. And we only have ourselves to blame for building such a paper-thin squad. Unless we win the Juve game in a couple weeks and at least give ourselves a little margin for error, there's a <10% chance we're winning the Scudetto this season. I don't see how it's possible.

*I mean, really, if I gave an O/U of 150 minutes in Serie A for Tajon Buchanan, who here is taking the over on that bet?

Not sure I agree with Inzaghi not being given enough in terms of midfield. In terms of forward, I agree. I understand why Inzaghi does not rotate as Arnautovic and Sanchez are not reliable. But I don't see why backups of Frattesi/Asllani/Klaassen are not enough to fight for a title. Are Juventus' backups not Miretti/Caviglia? I'm not even sure if they have a 3rd midfield backup as they seem to use Cambiaso there sometime who is a wingback. I guess Fagioli/Pogba were there but both are suspended from playing.

I think Inzaghi has done really well this season. I also think management dropped the ball on the attack. We needed at least a 3rd reliable striker that can rotate (including starting matches) and contribute. Inzaghi doesn't have much choice here in terms of rotation. However, I still think he should have done a better job in playing Frattesi and Asllani in more games.

Frattesi isn't just some inexperienced youngster. He has already had two full seasons in Serie A and made the move here due to his good performances - it's not as if Inter would have been the only club interested in Frattesi. He's also become a starter for the national team and largely looked good, getting time ahead of guys like Tonali, etc.

Even Asllani, although young, has some experience. Even in his limited time, he already has close to 50 appearances for Inter and over 50 Serie A matches. Not a huge amount of experience but enough to be able to start matches here and there. When Juventus had Locatelli injured vs. us they played Caviglia, giving him his first start. Now, he's actually older than I thought (he's 23, I would have thought closer to 20) but he has less experience than Asllani playing in Serie A.

We saw that when we played Bisseck, he did quite well and I think most of us were impressed. He most likely would not have gotten a chance if we didn't have the injury crisis, but either way, he's able to contribute despite never having played in the league before and being fairly inexperienced in terms of top league football. With a lot of these players, the only way they will get experience is by playing games. Barella/Hakan/Mkhi don't need to start every single match for us. We are not going to lose a game simply because Frattesi starts.

Going back to Frattesi - he had some positive sub appearances recently - scoring our winning goal vs. Verona, winning a penalty against Monza. I just don't see why he could not have been awarded with a start against Lazio. Like everyone felt, Lazio did not even seem they wanted to be in the Super Cup, especially given their coach's words. We would have won that game whether Barella started or Frattesi did.

Now we put ourselves in a situation where we need to play Frattesi-Asllani together in a tough game. I don't have as much of an issue with this because of the two of them, but more because they've had so little time to actually start the 'important' matches. This should not be an excuse though - other teams have played backup midfielders in plenty of games.

 

[Universe]

Look at Milan on Saturday. The tying goals were scored by Jovic and Okafor, two substitutes. Neither of them are normal starters for them, but between them they've got eight goals in Serie A this season. Our backup CF's have scored one goal between them in the league this year. Imagine bringing Alexis and Arnautovic on with a 2-1 deficit and expecting them to score the goals to overturn the result. LOL, not happening. We paid more for those two than Milan did for Okafor and Jovic, btw, so either a big scouting win for Milan or big scouting loss for us, depending on how you want to look at it.

This is a perfect example. Jovic alone is outperforming Arnautovic and Sanchez combined on every possible metric - footballing, financial, and more.

• free transfer, compared to the lunacy of spending €10m on Arnautovic
• earns less than Arnautovic and Sanchez
• significantly younger so he is a sustainable option and doesn't need replacing in a year
• retains / significantly grow his resale value, becoming another financial asset for Milan - something which should be high priority for us too considering we need to sell every year and therefore need to replenish our pool of saleable assets
• by virtue of being younger he's just far less injury-prone too. He's missed 5 games in the past 2 years, compared to Sanchez and Arnautovic who have missed over 50 games combined through injury

And I haven't even mentioned his on-pitch contribution which is significantly and objectively better too. He's the opposite of Sanchez and Arnautovic who are old as fuck, always injured, expensive, and complete shit.

The decision for these two to be our designated backups for the season was a disaster. The wilful decision to NOT correct the mistake and NOT reinforce in Jan will go down in infamy as a directly title-losing moment I reckon.

 

[CoolMan44]

Regarding the LCB situation - I think we need to decide what to do in the summer. There is no way that Acerbi being the first backup LCB should be a solution. I can somewhat understand hesitance in playing C. Augusto as you lose the backup wingback which is important in our system. However, we need to either: 1) trust Bisseck in that role, 2) get a backup LCB in the summer, or 3) get a backup LWB and move C. Augusto as an LCB.

C. Augusto actually looks pretty good as an LCB to me and maybe even better than an LWB. Regardless, I don't understand the hesitance in not using Bisseck there. It's not as if Acerbi being left-footed helps our build up all that much, and there have been plenty of right-footed centrebacks that can comfortable play with their left without it being an issue.

Have we ever played a right-footed player in the LCB position under Inzaghi btw? I seem to remember Darmian playing there once this season - it was a game where he played all of RWB, LCB, LWB in the same match. I can't recall Inzaghi's first season as it was mostly Bastoni/Dimarco but I know Skriniar played there a decent number of times (mostly under Conte though).

 

[wera]

Gimme Bisseck on the left and let Dimarco/Carlos Augusto run wild.

Pavard and Darmian can be on the right.

 

[crzdcolombian]

we don't use any of our subs.... I'd be happy if we just got rid of their wages.....

-Arna does nothing cost a lot and man would it be awesome if we can somehow get out of his loan to buy
- Sensi - Free him $2 millions going to be nice + freeing up his wages
- Klaaseen ... has he done anything? what he costing to eat our bench 3m?
- Alexis Sanchez ..... I know people are riding his dick right now but he got to go. Maybe he stays till end of season because we don't have another CF especially getting rid of Arna but these 4 are just a waste of air

 

[Alex de Large]

Limone will trust Bissek as LCB only when Darmian, Acerbi, Carlos and Bastoni are all out which is pretty unlikely. What i would like to see is more Bissek minutes and never play Acerbi as LCB, make Acerbi/SDV never play together.

 

[crzdcolombian]

Limone will trust Bissek as LCB only when Darmian, Acerbi, Carlos and Bastoni are all out which is pretty unlikely. What i would like to see is more Bissek minutes and never play Acerbi as LCB, make Acerbi/SDV never play together.

odd Bissek played really well when he was given minutes then the coach was like o shit dude isn't 30.... he is too young to play

 

[CoolMan44]

odd Bissek played really well when he was given minutes then the coach was like o shit dude isn't 30.... he is too young to play

Problem is that he only sees him as an RCB and we have Pavard there. If Simone was willing to play Bisseck as an LCB he would get a lot more minutes.

 

[Il Drago]

You guys refuse to accept Inzaghi sees Acerbi as his second option at lcb and this has been the case since the day Acerbi was signed. Whenever Bastoni was absent or needed a rest Acerbi had always played as lcb. In case of an emergency there's also Augusto. Inzaghi has always had a clear hierarchy for every position and in his mind Bisseck isn't needed on the left. Instead he is more needed on the right when Pavard was injured or now that Darmian plays more often as rwb.