4 things to remember about Inter’s mercato

Credit: Photo by Icon sport

Stability first

With the 16 most-used players of the season all retained, Simone Inzaghi’s Inter is a perfectly honed team with no frustrated individualities. The average age may be relatively high, but Inter are an “instant team” ready to win right away, or rather to keep on winning. Above all, with the change of ownership, no manager has had to be sacrificed for economic reasons.

Painless departures

Inter only lost a few second-rate players, with midfielders Klaasen and Sensi going free, and Cuadrado, who had been unavailable for several months. The small exception is Alexis Sanchez, the fourth striker who was playing a little more, but who is now 36 and his career behind him. Audero, who was reserve goalkeeper, has returned from loan.

A hyper-targeted mercato

The objectives were quite clear, and they were achieved early on, with Taremi (Porto) and Zielinski (Napoli) coming to the end of their contracts and raising the level of the replacements. This is even more the case for the second goalkeeper position, where Inter have paid 13.5 million for Martinez (Genoa). Finally, so that Inzaghi really does have two interchangeable “eleven”, the young Argentine Palacios (Independiente Rivadavia) has been recruited in defence for 6.5 million, to act as vice Bastoni.

Slight overstaffing

Inter haven’t totally succeeded in downsizing, particularly up front, with Joaquin Correa (Marseille) and Salcedo (Lecco, and former player) unable to find a buyer after their unsuccessful loan spells, and are 5th and 6th strikers respectively. Goalkeeper Radu (Bournemouth), who returned from Bournemouth, suffered a similar fate. Worse still, he doesn’t have a shirt number. Last but not least, there’s trouble at right-back with Dunfries, Darmian and Buchanan, who was injured at the Copa America but is due to return in the autumn.