Lecce v Inter – Liveblog for 3rd Place

Its rumored Fredy Guarin is almost an inter player 

Hey, we got a new player! He’s a midfielder, he’s young, he has European experience, he has no public history of insanity, and we’re getting him on loan first, after stealing him from right under the nose of Juve. All that sounds awesome! However, that’s really all I know about Fredy Guarin right there. Is there anyone who’s actually seen him play that could fill me in?
 
And also, does this mean our search for a forward is a no-go? I mean, we really only have two good forwards who aren’t either too young (Casta), too perma-injured (Forlan) or too mediocre (Zarate) on the present roster. Might be nice to add another. Or maybe the idea is to just field midfielders in forward positions, the way we’re increasingly fielding fullbacks in midfield positions. (I guess that would also mean the forwards will now circle around and be slotted in goalkeeper positions, and Julio Cesar will move up to center back. It’ll throw everyone for a loop.)

From Chalon a couple of posts ago:
"I know Guarin better than most here cause i'm from South America. So I've watch this guy plenty with Colombia. He is exactly what we need. A physically imposing, fast ball winner that can pass and shoot well. He has a bomb of a right footed shot. Reminds me of a younger Stankovic but better at short passes and better ball stealer."

My concern with him is that despite his supposed talent, he's not a starter even at Porto. I may be arrogant here, but our expectations are a teensy bit higher.

Last year, Kharja was touted as a dynamic attack-minded central midfielder. Just sayin...

Honestly i didn't know the guy until Copa America 2011. but his defensive and attacking skills made me look up his name at Wikipedia and find out more about him.

they say he assisted most of Falcao goals in both The national team and at Porto FC. 

and apparently he can score a screamer. that's all I know about him.

and as for strikers, i think we'v used all of the non-euro spots already with Jesus and Guarin, so i don't think we'l see any new faces in the forward for now.

EDIT: Juan Jesus could go out on loan for now, so "yaay" we might still have a non-euro spot.

Assists and screamers sound good to me. Look forward to seeing him first-hand.

And as for the non-Euro-cap issue: Are there no good forwards with EU
passports? Someone mentioned Jovetic earlier here -- that would be fantastic if
it happened.
 

I wish we could have JoJo  :( *sigh*

I hear we'r linked with Paulo Dybala, I don't know who he is..  

forget about the mambo-jambo-non-euro I mentioned earlier, I thought I knew what I was talking about.  

Sky:

Inter Milan's Philippe Coutinho will spend the rest of the season on loan at Primera Liga side Espanyol, the Brazilian has confirmed.

The attacking midfielder will join the Catalan outfit on a five-month deal.

"I've come here to pick up my stuff and say goodbye to everyone," Coutinho said on Monday to Sky Sport Italia.

"However, I will only be away for five months.

"I need to play and I think I can do well at Espanyol before returning here.

"I would like to thank all of the fans but I will be back. I'm an Inter supporter myself and I think we can win the league this season."

The 19-year-old moved to Inter in the summer of 2010 from Vasco Da Gama and has scored one goal in five league appearances this season.

Not going to lie, pretty depressed about this move. I don't want anyone else to have our Coutinho, even if it's just for 5 months.

Yep, I've always been nursing this fools hope that he'll burst into the team. Of our TQs he's easily the most exciting, and he's performed on so many of the rare occasions that he's been called on. Its sad that the coach that believed in him the most was Rafa...

he needs to play more games + its easier for him at La Liga than Serie A. tbh I'm actually siding with this move.

I've got no problem with this. Kid needs to actually play, and this is a purely temporary loan, with no option to buy. I don't see him permanently leaving any time soon.

GdS: Castaignos is not going on loan to Cesena.

Sky: Guarin has landed in Milan. Muntari is close to the AC Milan.

Sky: Kucka's arrival means that Muntari could go to Milan immediately. It doesn't relate to Motta situation.

Sky: Latest arrival for Inter is Kucka on loan. That was after a positive meeting between Inter and Genoa.

Sky: Inter have registered Juan's contract to Lega Calcio. He is now (almost) officially an Inter player.

Muntari's agent was seen near Inter headquarters. A meeting could be in sight with Inter for his transfer to Milan, not in June, but now.

Sky: Guarin will fly to Italy tonight. Tomorrow he'll have his medical and sign his contract with Inter. There is also Kucka who according to Sky is also coming this way from Genoa.

Galliani on Muntari: "Him in January? I don't know but it is certainly an option. But I cannot say anything definitive but anything can happen."

GdS: From virtually a Juventus player to an Inter player in reality. Fredy Guarin was a Juve target for weeks, but this morning, he is an Inter player. Massimo Moratti has reached an agreement with Porto and the Colombian for the transfer to Inter: the end of this negotiations is very close and things could close today. It's the second purchase of Inter this winter after they picked up Internacional defender, Juan Jesus.

according to Legaseriea.it:
Mariga is coming back from Real Sociedad. 
we have also officially signed Nunes Jesus Juan Guilherme from the Brazilian Inter. 

might be join us Antonio Candreva ?

It's rumored to be completely official - Juan Jesus is an Inter player and not going on loan.

is that good news ?

How come we were never linked with Jovetic yet ? or is he just happy at fiorentina ?

This atmosphere needs a new chapter of Inter Adventures.....

Maryam get ready Alien Time-traveler...

anyone see how sneijder furious againts cambie when he stole the ball, dribbling hard, but blocked by cambie who just idly standing there watching, he pushed him aside after that..
and today i saw article when sneij 'fuck-off'ing pazzo although i dont know the cause, but this two event probably why CR took him off at half time..
regardless the matters, sneij was one of our brightest player yesterday aside from JC, its pity the other teammate didnt put as much effort as he was..he have the right to be furious.. im not saying its good to be temperamental, but at least he had the hunger inside him..

http://i297.photobucket.com/al...
this is what im talking about

It's official, we just got a loan Freddy Guarin from Porto (with the option to buy him out for 11M), Coutinho is going away for a half year loan to Espanyol

the whole trade things become sneaky, first they invent loan with the right to redemption, after the loan session ended it comes the "we will only purchase him at half the agreed price"
you which bitch im talking about arent you?

I'm going to disagree slightly with some of the general sentiment here.  We did play poorly, but we were also incredibly unfortunate.  I don't remember us ever having spent that much time in another team's box without scoring.  It was a bit of a freak scenario that we missed that many relatively open headers from set pieces, and their keeper made at least 2 uber saves.  Not to mention Milito missing the open goal from the admittedly difficult (but certainly not impossible) angle.  Obi was crap, but it is right to play youngsters in these games.  I don't know why we don't play Poli though. 

Anyway, I know we were bad, but I thought we were still miles ahead of those early season horror shows.  And at the end of the day, I really think bad luck was mostly to blame for last night.  We will bounce back. forza inter.

Anybody have any idea what countries Inter will be visiting in the off season Asian tour?

Indonesia...

Is that it? I thought that was just one of the countries they made room for

Yeah ajay, it's Indonesia, my home country. At the moment Ernesto Paolillo is in Indonesia.. he was treated like a King by my fellow Interisti.. :D

I've been waiting for many years to see Internazionale visit my country.. Unfortunately, i wont be able to see Inter if they really come there.. Since I live in Australia right now.. Damn!  

Without Motta, we aren't making the CL.  
It's been painfully obvious this season that we are a different team with him playing - a winning team.  This week, some stats were given that backed up my gut feeling: according to football-italia, since 2009-2010 we've won only 43 percent of games w/o Motta playing, compared to ~75 percent with him.  He is, in my opinion, the most important player on the pitch for us.  I was skeptical of the 4-4-2, but with Motta as regista and Alvarez drifting into the hole, we were organized and dangerous.  

If money is the consideration, let's sell the other guy who is injured all the time, would fetch much more money, and doesn't seem to fit into the current squad.  That's Wesley Sneijder.  We don't make CL, and that money we "make" from Motta's transfer fee and "save" in wages is totally nullified.

So should we also call this team MOTTAnazionale Milano????
He is one player. Yes an important one but Inter is a club no player is bigger than whole team. I do wish Motta to stay but not that much to think without him we wont do anything.

If one player is gone then others would have to adopt his spot.
I think you believe in goal.com and their player rating that Wes was flop but I dont think he was that bad; just see the replay and tell me how he is unlocking him self isnt some thing special.

And hey tell me how did you find out that last match when Motta played 3/4 of the game and was sub?

The numbers don't lie: we win the vast majority of matches with Motta playing, and lose most of our games when he does not.

That players rating system is fun but still; its Goal.com... A site that have written an article about Jose recently, and I swear they act as if he never was at Inter and that he has good relations here...

Its like this.... Porto - Chelsea - Venus - Real Madrid.

Wow, this doesn't look good. Lipreading Pazzo is pretty easy here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

The rumor is that Guarin is coming to Inter on a loan for 1-2 million with a right to buy for around 10. I don't think that I ever saw the player kick a ball in anger so it'll be a discovery to me who he is.

This doesn't feel like a panic buy which I am thankful for. Branca said a long time ago that Inter need a midfielder and a defender and Moratti keeps saying that we have attackers so we are still on message here - that's exactly what we picked up this winter market.

would that leave much space for poli ? cause i know he's here on loan. 

I have this very very bad and admittedly stupid wish/desire that one of our midfielders Motta or Cambiasso or even Zanetti picks a two to three weeks injury or some kind of cold... Desire? Seeing more of Poli.

I know its stupid but come one... Lecce....

...... nah, it's still stupid....

But.......... Lecce.....

*Sigh*

Its games like these that make me happy that I have a job and have to go to it despite a 3 month break from Uni. Absolutely unacceptable, especially when I see the substitutions. 

Man, kind of glad I missed this one. After beating Milan and Lazio in such rapid succession, I kind of assumed we'd eventually lose to a team further down the table -- someone like Palermo or Fiore or something. But Lecce? Rough.

In any case, not to just beat the drum for my favorite youngster, but why the hell don't we play Poli more!? With Motta out, we need a functional midfielder who can actually pass. And Poli's looked good in all the rare occasions that we've let him on the pitch. 

Our best chances came from set pieces. Samuel in particular dominated in the air. Our open play was poor. Lecce put numbers in the middle to deny space for Sneijder and the strikers. They exploited our lack of pace at the back and threatened on counters. In the end though, it was a poor marking by the CBs that gifted them the goal.

I think Ranieri's half time sub kinda made sense. He saw that aerial assault was probably the best way to unlock Lecce defence and wanted to stretch the defenders by adding width. But Alvarez was not really a great RM and he drifted to center a lot anyways. Later Zarate was brought on for Obi but he never combined with Nagatomo, preferring to cross by himself from bad positions. His introduction took the teeth out of our attack for the remaining 20 minutes or so. IMO Sneijder shouild have stayed on. He had a decent first half and was very involved in the build up. We were lacking forward runs from the midfield into the box. Cuchu tried a few times but got into Sneijder's way. Poli could have given us the extra thrust from midfield.

On the whole the team effort was lacking. The urgency was not there. Maicon, Cambiasso, and Zanetti were not very involved in the game. Lecce's goalkeeper was simply having an amazing day, denying Samuel's bullet headers and Pazzini's decent efforts, all good attempts that would have been a goal 8 out of 10 times. Luck was also not on our side. Officials missed a few of our corners. The disallowed first disallowed goal was a close call that didn't go our way.

In hindsight the decision to play near full-strength against Napoli mid-week look misguided (Napoli also lost to Genoa, coincidentally). We did not have a lot of rotations during the winning-streak. A few players, most notably Milito, Cuchu, and Maicon, looked tired and notably failed to influence the game in the second half. Sooner or later Ranieri will have to get bench players more involved.

Please be the last season were we have to watch Zanetti & Cambiasso playing in the midfield together. With just a few days left of this mercato its that time once again were Branca & co will be running around like headless chickens trying to buy some reject that nobody else wants.

Agreed.  Cambiasso does not work well playing forward, and Zanetti is less effective playing inside.  Paired, they are pretty bad.

Bah, couldn't watch the match at all, even a replay, thanks to the mega-sucky internet connection I possess here. I lost patience after the first 10 minutes and checked the result and after the initial outrage, I just felt happy to get 80 minutes of my life back.

Also, for those who were lucky enough to watch the match, were we really that bad? I mean, we played pretty badly against Lazio and the first half against Napoli too. Was it just the case that today we did eke out the half chances we did in the previous games, but the Lecce keeper just saved them? Or were we actually even worse than the other two games?

I'll get into it in greater detail later, but their keeper saved them 2 or 3 times, we had a ball bounce of a post and we had 2 goals taken out of the net for offsides - both calls were tighter than... well very tight, but correct, by centimeters.

Neither Milito nor Pazzini had a real good chance, nor did they get any service. Sneijder didn't have a good game. We lacked a midfielder who can take the ball out of the defense and into the attacking phase - god forbid we sub Javier who played well but wasn't what we needed... more later...

Tell me about Sneijder!! In my opinion he messed everything up in this game. I don't feel he is a team player anymore!

I am sick of his long range shooting and ground pounding! He easily falls down these days and just wants a penalty for every DM that touches him!

For me, Alvarez is much better than him. Anyway,, Ranieri is an expert and I don't think Sneijder should stay with us in the summer!

Wow saying Alvarez is better than Sneijder that's a bit extreme, Alvarez is a very average player. As for Sneijder its pretty clear he'll be sold in the summer.

Of course not! Sneijder is Sneijder.
I can't say Alvarez is better than him. But in Lecce, Sneijder was below ok!
Alvarez was ok!

Alvarez is very slow and wholly one-footed.  I don't know if he'll be able to overcome these limitations and instead will get figured out by the league.

Ranieri got it wrong. His starting lineup was too functional and couldn't break down Lecce's defense. Taking off Sneijder was also a terrible idea, after that we just looked like idiots.

Pazzo and Milito both looked out of form. Their movement was slow and out of sync.

We played bad but that goalkeeper saved Lecce. Obi was useless, he couldnt even pressure oddo on that pass he made for lecces goal.

Why, in heavens sake, couldn't we sub Obi or Nagatomo or Zanetti (Never Going to Happen) for Poli? 

We needed a game changer, and the only positive figure on the bench is Poli. We could have introduced him to give us that extra passing mind we needed with the absences of Motta and a real midfielder between those other 5 defenders we had on the lines.

What happened to Faraoni so that Chivu takes his place? 

Rageeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

"We needed a game changer, and the only positive figure on the bench is Poli. We could have introduced him to give us that extra passing mind we needed with the absences of Motta and a real midfielder between those
other 5 defenders we had on the lines."

I was very much thinking the same thing. We needed an actual midfielder who can string passes together.

When the team were down we were fighting to move up. Now that we are up-ish the fight is gone. This team needs to fight complacency. We lost to Novara and Lecce this season because we didn't play as hard as could have.

i cant fucking believe this team!!! we have a chance to tie for 3rd, and we miss it. now we are back to 5th. team looks tired. when the is last time cuchu had a game off? its pretty obvious we need renforcements, regardless if someone leaves. yet no one seems to be arriving. are we really planing on continuing like this for the rest of the season? anyways, all props to lecce's goalie.

p.s.. zarate sucks

A really pathetic performance!  I only watched the 2nd half and what I saw is a team with no passion, no vision, no leadership what's so ever (yes, I am looking at the two ARG duo in the middle.) 
It looks like Motta's long range passing would be able to better spread our play and split Lecce's defense.
I haven't followed what happened to Motta.  If it's true that he is to be sold for 10m, it only shows that we are becoming a feeder club and surely has no ambition (yes, I am looking at the president!  If you don't have the money and desire, how about selling the club to some rich mideasten oil businessman?  Personally, as a supportor of the team, I don't care who is the owner as long as the money is there.).  Even from a pure financial perspective, I believe achieving that 3rd place and playing in next season's champions' league will bring in at least 3 times of Motta's transfer fee. 

We better not lose Coutinho.

I swear.........