Inter's Summer Transfers - Do They Really Fit In With Gasperini's Formations?

With about a month left in this year's summer transfer window have Inter lived up to the promises made at the end of last season?  Unfortunately not! Don't get me wrong I believe that the players we have signed will be useful to us, but I believe that the biggest thing holding us back is Gasperini's formations. 

We have signed two wing backs, Nagatomo & Jonathan, yet in Gasperini's formations there is no place for wing backs meaning that these two and Maicon will be forced to play as wingers or full backs dependent on whether we're playing with a 3 man or 4 man defence.  It's not just the defence that is causing problems with fitting players in, our biggest signing so far is Alvarez who plays CAM or as a winger but so far this pre-season he's been pushed into a deeper midfield position or as right forward which in the match against Galatasaray he looked pretty uncomfortable in my opinion.  Also on the subject of midfielders out of position Gasperini's formations are also forcing Sneijder (one of the best trequartistas in the game) to play a deep central position which to be fair Wes is taking in his stride and playing well in, though it's hardly taking advantage of the talent available. 

The Ultimate Inter Line-up Of All Time - Who Made The Squad?

A couple of weeks ago while watching clips of old Inter matches on YouTube I started thinking about who would be in my ultimate starting line up of all time, this wasn't quite as easy as i thought it would be as the more i thought about it the more quality players from Inter's history came to mind and I ended up with a 8-10-6 formation which of course is ridiculous & I may as well have just written a post about all the greats of Inter's history, which would be a very long job so i decided to find out who my fellow Interista would say deserved to be in the ultimate line-up.  To keep things consistent i decided to go with the formation that i feel suits Inter's players the best, so i asked my followers on Facebook & Twitter what their ultimate line-up would be on a 4-3-1-2 formation and i got some great replies, though it soon became clear that certain players were on pretty much all the answers, meaning that again i ended up with more players than i needed so the line-up is made up of the most voted for 11.

Inter's 2011/12 SerieA Fixtures & Predictions

Last night the 2011/12 Serie A fixtures were announced and three of our biggest games will come on the 3rd, 10th & 18th weeks of the season.  The dates of these fixture could possible be changed depending on how the teams involved do in other competitions, but for this I am going to list all our fixtures for this season as the dates given and give a brief prediction of how i think the match will go.  Tickets for these matches are available by clicking the link above.

Inter's 4th pre-season friendly ends in an eventful 0-0 draw against Galatasaray

It was the fourth pre-season summer friendly for Inter yesterday against Turkish side Galatasaray played in the neutral venue of the rewirpowerSTADION in Bochum, Dusseldorf, which is a city of the largest Turkish community in Germany. It wasn't a surprise to see that the stadium had sold out all of it's 20,000 seats to see the Turkish giants take on the World Champions. The weather conditions were hardly perfect, with a temperature slightly above 10 degrees, heavy rain, a slippery pitch and a bothersome wind. It also proved to be that the Turkish team & fans were hardly perfect either with some nasty tackles & an incident involving the Galatasaray throwing flares in the second half. Both their players & fans were a disgrace considering this was supposedly a friendly, there is no need for fans of any club to be throwing flares on to the pitch & the crunching tackles coming from the Galatasaray players were out of order, if I didn't know better I would have thought this game was a UCL knock out match not a pre season friendly & I feel that the Turk club should be fined for the behaviour of their fans.

A salute to Marco Materazzi: "Tutti pazzi per Materazzi"

This summer has seen the end of Marco Materazzi's time as an Inter player & as he leaves as a free agent after 10 years of service to the Nerazzurri , I felt it was fitting to look back at the 37 year old defender's career & pay tribute to not only a great defender but a man who holds Inter in a special place in his heart like all good Interista.  Due to his unpredictable personality & overly aggressive play he is known amongst fans & other players as 'The Matrix' & 'The Butcher'.  So where did it all begin?

His early life & Career

'Matrix' was born on 19th August 1973 in Lecce, where his father Giuseppe played for U.S. Lecce, Giuseppe also was a coach & manager of teams including Pisa, Lazio, Sporting CP & Tianjin Teda, so from a young age football was in Marco's blood.