We’ve seen this before haven’t we ragazzi?
‘One of us! One of us! Gooble Gobble ONE OF US!’
It would appear as though anyone with ties to Inter in the past sees the challenge of facing the nerazzuri as a testament to their own credibility, and this morning was no different as former Inter player Mihajlovic handed Inter their third straight defeat in all competitions to add to the nightmare start to 2019.
From Dimarco’s worldie, to Zenga causing us grief (before ultimately saving our behinds) Inter always seem to extract the 101% out of their opposition. This mornings failure to collect ANY points against a hapless Bologna, who were win-less since December 2017 away under Pippo Inzaghi, would have surprised few die hard interesti, whom like myself must be becoming severely conditioned to this mediocrity.
Mihajlovic is enjoying his second stint in charge of the Rossoblu, having led them during the 08-09 campaign, with this header to Santander moving Bologna 3 points clear of the relegation zone.
His counter-part however, Luciano Spalletti is now under immense amounts of pressure to turn it around at Inter. Despite still sitting in third position, the Inter faithful (including the board of directors and owners) are struggling to keep the faith in Spalletti, with rumours of Antonio Conte floating around Inter HQ in Milano, waiting for good (or not so good) news, whichever way you see it.
When interviewed by SKY ITALIA following the defeat, Luciano cared to comment:
“It is nohing new, being jeered by the fans, as I’ve experienced it a few times in my career. When you pay the price of the ticket, you have the right to demand something different, especially if the team is called Inter.”
“We made really basic mistakes… you can tell the team is behind me but we lack something in the fight. The others fight harder than we do.”
These comments will do little to encourage the inter fans, whom after breaking attendance records all season has seen the team plummet over a number of fixtures where fan restrictions have been put in place (See the racism incident v Napolo and its outcome). What this does is basically solidify the fact that Inter have one of, if not the most vocal, passionate and attentive fan bases not only in Italy but across the globe.
The fans are everything and at the moment there is very little being done behind the scenes not only to rectify the situation, but to give the fans any sort of hope that this mess will be turned around anytime soon.
One thing remains certain. Without adequate results from here on in, and failure to close out a UCL qualifying spot would almost definitely put an early end to emperor Spallo’s reign at Inter.
Combine this with the clear factor that the sides main protagonists to success (Icardi, Nainggolan, Perisic) all seem to have their heads elsewhere, and it isn’t hard to understand the frustrations of the Inter fans, who have been known to vocalise their discontent.
