Inter has always been blessed with world class strikers and goalkeepers, some occassional all time great defensive players and some great midfielders. What we always lacked was a consistent duration of creative attacking midfielders or forwards. When we had them, they were top class but there was always something wrong, since the Mazzola & Corso days of course. Recoba, Baggio, Beccalossi, Sneijder, Bergakmp arguably and a bunch of others. It's as if we feel there's a curse (typical Inter mentality
) and we avoid signing high profile creative players just because we worry something will go wrong, so we settle for older guys who will surprise us if they stay fit for longer than two seasons (see Luis Figo and Antonio Cassano).
Hopefully we pull the trigger in the next couple of seasons for one elite, world class attacking midfielder. Hazard will be 30 by then so maybe something else.
It's a general Inter trend to not have a creative midfielder, but obviously we've reached mount Everest with someone like Sneijder around, who wasn't really the most creative player but had great vision and great passing skills. Which means that we do not really need creativity, but it's always more than welcome. Creativity always comes with eccentricity, so it may be bring a negative output sometimes - which is why conservative Italian coaches don't really appreciate that type of player - but we all agree that you need 1-2 of those players to break a well structured defence.
If we pull of a Vidal-Nainggolan midfield, we'll have few things to worry about. They can both bring the ball forward, despite their lack of creativity, we can simply overpower other teams by keeping more possession and giving more chances to out wingers to create chances for Icardi (or Icardi + Lautaro) or the midfield to take some shots. Both Vidal and Nainggolan are players that like to enter the opposition area, so we hopefully will no longer see a 40 meter difference between Icardi and our central midfielder when we're on the attack.
If we also pull of this Vrsaljko deal as well (which seems easier to happen at the moment), then we're one right winger away from being a very serious outsider for the CL race, despite the fact that we will definitely have a very tough group to begin with. Even if we stick with Candreva, I have less worries with the two transfers we're about to make. He won't have another season without any goals. He will continue to provide several assists, no matter how frustrating he may be. We can replicate a top 4 finish at least in Italy, manage to do some noise in Europe and next season we can get someone on the right wing who we all will welcome. Some guy like Leroy Sane or at least Federico Chiesa that so many of you have hard ons for.