Sebastiano Esposito

[#NotForMe]

I never rated him that much, even when he was under Conte. He feels like most of our academy, smart and understand the game well (good Inter training I supposed); however, he always lacked of the X-factor, which is essential to be a special player at young age. The most impressive thing about him was his learning ability, that he is so trainable and could become a complete striker, but given how he acted in the past few seasons, he pretty much destroyed himself and fell off from the trajectory in becoming a top striker, unless he somehow improves drastically to catch up.

Also if he is so special to start with, I would have expected him perform like Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne back at Pescara, which he could have, might have if he wasn't so problematic all those years.

 

[Nerazzurri_Ninja]

I never rated him that much, even when he was under Conte. He feels like most of our academy, smart and understand the game well (good Inter training I supposed); however, he always lacked of the X-factor, which is essential to be a special player at young age. The most impressive thing about him was his learning ability, that he is so trainable and could become a complete striker, but given how he acted in the past few seasons, he pretty much destroyed himself and fell off from the trajectory in becoming a top striker, unless he somehow improves drastically to catch up.

Also if he is so special to start with, I would have expected him perform like Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne back at Pescara, which he could have, might have if he wasn't so problematic all those years.

I thought he really shined at Sampdoria, i think hes a standout talent like leoni who were linked to, i think he would succeed with a better team around him. In anycase im rooting for him to succeed at Empoli and a return to Inter as a new homegrown player.

I really think Italy needs to invest in their youth, not everyone can carry a team, these loans are about getting players exp than giving them oppurtunities

 

[.h.]

you have some fair points there, but at the same time, you cant take the blame off his shoulders entirely. He's been dropped from teams, what, 3 times now for attitude issues?

 

[Adriano@10]

you have some fair points there, but at the same time, you cant take the blame off his shoulders entirely. He's been dropped from teams, what, 3 times now for attitude issues?

This plus he s 22 and it s not like he set serie B on fire.... He s a good serie B player at best atm plus with his attitude he has shown he probably aint the right profile to come of the bench so what are we gonna do with him?

 

[CafeCordoba]

We want to sell him.

 

[Il Drago]

He scored in Empoli's Coppa match against Catanzaro. He played for 76 minutes

 

[Gaindé]

I still believe he has that *thing* in him.
Would swap him with the grillmaster .

 

[pier]

Apparently he also made an assist, almost 2 actually.
If he really hit new level, then that's it, we don't have buy back option but at least 5m option buy is secured.

It's may too soon to say, and yeah it's coppa vs a serie B team, let see how his season goes.

 

[Il Drago]

Apparently he also made an assist, almost 2 actually.
If he really hit new level, then that's it, we don't have buy back option but at least 5m option buy is secured.

It's may too soon to say, and yeah it's coppa vs a serie B team, let see how his season goes.

If he hits new level then we made a very bad deal. 5m for a forward is nothing.

But still early days. Let's wait to see how his season unfolds first.

 

[pier]

If he hits new level then we made a very bad deal. 5m for a forward is nothing.

But still early days. Let's wait to see how his season unfolds first.

Yeah, that's it, we're stuck with that valuation. Only an undisclosed Sell on Fee % may be able to rescue the deal slightly.

 

[Gaindé]

His issue is his head and not getting injured like last year because IIRC he behave well at Sampdoria he just had that njury that stopped him.
But in terms of vision, technique, football IQ and shooting he is really not a bad player imo, at all.

 

[.h.]

He's not a bad player but after five seasons of failing to find his feet and settle into a good role it's not great in terms of lost experience.

 

[Kova10]

I hope that we kind of inserted some buy back or something similar. Dudes just got 22 years old. Last season he was really unlucky to get injured, but was one of the best players at Sampsoria, same with his experience at Basel two years ago, where he sadly had some disciplinary issues, but nothing too concerning at 20 years.

The expectations on under 23 year olds are crazy tbh. Only the very best talents in the world have their place set in a line up at this age.

 

[vex]

His issue is his head

Yep, you can stop there, it summarizes it nicely. Extremely talented, but missing something mentally. Don't know the dude, but he seemed a little arrogant for his age when he was here, which often happens with really talented young players, and can wreak havoc later in their career. Basically balotelli syndrome on a smaller scale...

 

[Corrode]

Inter Primaveras have more greater chance to shine with Dopentus rather than Inter itself. It's grown as the club's culture.

 

[Gaindé]

He's not a bad player but after five seasons of failing to find his feet and settle into a good role it's not great in terms of lost experience.

He is still only 22, 5 seasons doesn't mean the same when talking about a player that age. He might not be an incredible incredible talent but he is nowhere near a finished player in terms of development.

Yep, you can stop there, it summarizes it nicely. Extremely talented, but missing something mentally. Don't know the dude, but he seemed a little arrogant for his age when he was here, which often happens with really talented young players, and can wreak havoc later in their career. Basically balotelli syndrome on a smaller scale...

We might disagree on this but imo, we sent him on loan too quickly in an important moment of his career, we could've got a great young striker out of his younger self by making him train with people like Lukaku (LOL) that he actually considered as a guide, Sanchez who has plenty of experience or even Lautaro. Both on and off the pitch I think it's better to be in your club and have people actually care about your career than to be sent on endless loan spells with managers taht'll rather start 35 years old strikers ahead of you. Then again maybe it's the player who wanted to go and play but I really don't believe so, because seeing the way he was talking at the time he was actually showing a great spirit.

I'll go ahead and blame traditional italian managers on this one but he had a great start in CL against Dortmund then barely played even in the latest group stage games, went ahead and had a good game at his first start against Genoa and barely played 90 minutes in the remaining Serie A games.
I just trust Inter to consistently drop the ball when it comes to young players.
This season might show me I'm wrong but I think we'll be in this thread discussing his performances a lot. He's a good player.

 

[.h.]

Tbh the thing with any top level first team is that you have a trade off. In order to justify significant minutes at that level, you need to deliver from early. That's why for example Bastoni had an unbumpy ride into our first team so young. That's why Bisseck gets more and more time. That's where Asllani has struggled

If you don't make an impact, then your.minjtes are restricted, which means you won't develop as much, and thus are probably better out on loan


This is why I've been such an advocate for an U23 team. Right now our emergency backups are the primavera, and the gap is way too big for any but the very very best, and physically developed, primavera to make the jump in a sustained way.

With an U23 team you can rely on the grey zone guys to help pad out the squad a bit and they can develop slowly, while still being useful for the first team and still getting loads of game time. And at a club where, tbh, sporting results matter but inter will play esposito rather than dropping him at the first sign of a bad spell, because it doesn't really matter that much if we finish mid table or mid lower table for the U23.

That's one thing of course to think about too - our youth has been, somehow, very good at winning but not very good at producing great players. We need to reorientated - the aim is to produce good players, if we can do that while winning then that is great. An U23 team explicitly lets us do that.


I do suspect that Espositos attitude and development would have been radically different over je last few years if we had an U23 team. The arrogance of "I'm a superstar at Inter in the making" goes away if you're playing AT Inter and can't break into the squad. Dropping for disciplinary problems would still happen but probably fewer and more controlled. We wouldn't bench him because he had a few bad games, to bring in some 32 year old guy instead because we are desperate for results, and in moments where our strike force is thin, he'd be able to be on our bench, ready to be called up, and given some sub appearances where the world is at his feet

 

[.h.]

But I'm also sure if he'd just stayed at Inter he'd be even worse behind where he is now, without an U23 team.

 

[Gaindé]

Tbh the thing with any top level first team is that you have a trade off. In order to justify significant minutes at that level, you need to deliver from early. That's why for example Bastoni had an unbumpy ride into our first team so young. That's why Bisseck gets more and more time. That's where Asllani has struggled

If you don't make an impact, then your.minjtes are restricted, which means you won't develop as much, and thus are probably better out on loan


This is why I've been such an advocate for an U23 team. Right now our emergency backups are the primavera, and the gap is way too big for any but the very very best, and physically developed, primavera to make the jump in a sustained way.

With an U23 team you can rely on the grey zone guys to help pad out the squad a bit and they can develop slowly, while still being useful for the first team and still getting loads of game time. And at a club where, tbh, sporting results matter but inter will play esposito rather than dropping him at the first sign of a bad spell, because it doesn't really matter that much if we finish mid table or mid lower table for the U23.

That's one thing of course to think about too - our youth has been, somehow, very good at winning but not very good at producing great players. We need to reorientated - the aim is to produce good players, if we can do that while winning then that is great. An U23 team explicitly lets us do that.


I do suspect that Espositos attitude and development would have been radically different over je last few years if we had an U23 team. The arrogance of "I'm a superstar at Inter in the making" goes away if you're playing AT Inter and can't break into the squad. Dropping for disciplinary problems would still happen but probably fewer and more controlled. We wouldn't bench him because he had a few bad games, to bring in some 32 year old guy instead because we are desperate for results, and in moments where our strike force is thin, he'd be able to be on our bench, ready to be called up, and given some sub appearances where the world is at his feet

While I agree the standards are pretty high an you need to make an impact, it's a little bit different for Bastoni for example, I think we paid such a "high" price, the price tag by itself would make us give him more time. Also i'd argue Esposito's impact was actually not bad at Inter, despite his young age. And when he came back every summer he usually was one of the most in-form strikers we had, which doesn't mean much but still.

I don't know how we'd do a U23 team, it seems like such a far objective, also when I see Milan's "U23" it's just laughable. Winning with our primavera doesn't mean anything if they're just destined to be shipped to Genoa/Sassuolo in order to lower player prices at best and plusvalenza cannon fodder at worst though. We need to see players integrated in the team from time to time. Last season we shat over the league, could've used so much of the players from the primavera but it ended up being Arnautovic stat padding all around lol.

It's a complex question and I don't think anybody t the club is willing to change the way we operate.

 

[.h.]

But his one spell in our first team he showed nothing aside from a penalty when we had basically already won the match (I think? Can't remember the score line).

Bastonis price tag was inflated because of plusvalenza, the fair value was more like 13m which is still high for a player of his age and exposure, but for example, not so far off what we paid for Salcedo, Colidio, or what was rumoured for Espositos value at one point.

I am a bit disappointed we didn't use the post derby run to blood a few more youth in the league, but tbh, unless we really thought someone was on the cusp or making it into the squad, then it'd be a purely ego thing..look at some of the past guys we gave a chance to, like, Romano? Most of them end up being a B/C level player.

The thing is, we can sit here and talk about our youth development as much as we want, but if we look at he last decade there are objectively very few players who have passed through our youth academy that would be useful for our team ATM. Dimarco, arguably di Gregorio, I wouldn't necessarily agree yet on Zaniolo or Gnonto, who else is there? I'm not necessarily a fan but some people would argue Pinamonti, and you could maybe discuss Biraghi? And for this specific Inter right now maybe Livaja as an Arnautovic replacement?