The case against Leonardo The "Tactically Inept" Manager

Yesterday Leonardo was defended by Zanetti, Cambiasso & Moratti who all claim that Leonardo is the right man for the Job and is capable of leading Inter to success, This is ironic really as this is the only time he's managed to get players to defend for him!  Unfortunately for Leonardo though they said similar things about Benitez just before he was shown the door and Moratti can't have that much faith in him if the rumours that he's in talks with Barcelona's Guardiola are true, maybe it's time for Leo to face facts that he's better suited as a coach and not a manager because as the report from the Football Italiano site below shows this is not a new problem for the Brazilian.

Inter v Shalke match report & reactions

What can i say about last nights Champions league quarter final first leg tie against Shalke?  Well let's start with the positives, firstly Milito is back in the starting line up and scored for us and second is Stankovic's wonder goal from 40 yards out in the first 25 seconds of the match (if you missed it see the video above)  Unfortunately that was as good as it got for Inter as the two goals we got during the first half were cancelled out by two goals for Shalke before half time, after half time things went from bad to worse for the Nerazzurri and in a similar style to the derby defeat at the weekend, Shalke managed to make us look like complete amatuers instead of world champions and for the second game in a row Chivu saw a red card yet again weakening our already shaky backline, which was also suffered the blow of an own goal by Ranocchia.  So after another terrible performance by Inter the game ended 2-5 to Shalke meaning that Inter need at least 4 goals on the return leg meaning the mighty Nerazzurri are effectively out of the running for making it through to the semi's. 

So who's to blame? The official verdict from Inter's camp is that the players are fatigued which i can understand after last years amazing run and the world cup followed by loads of injuries and the ridiculous amount of matches played in 2011 so far, but with the squad Inter has at it's disposal that excuse only goes so far to explain this awful week.  The true reason in my opinion is the management as we know the first half of the season was destroyed by Benitez who couldn't organise a pub team let alone anything else then things looked better when Leonardo took over at Christmas but over the last month or so it is becoming more apparent that his tactics only favour an attacking mentality and he seems to give no thought to the defensive side of the team and considering how strong our defense was last season there is no excuse for this and as much as i hate to say it come the end of the season he has to go to be replaced with a manager that can balance the team properley.

Inter v Shalke Champions league quarter final preview

Well after the farce that was the derby on Saturday let's hope that Inter pull themselves together and sort out their defensive strategy for their Champions league quarter final match tonight against Shalke, i've said it alot this season that Inter's defense without Walter Samuel is dodgy at best.  Our other defenders like Lucio & Ranocchia on paper should be more than capable of stopping most attackers but the all out attack mentality that Leonardo has brought to the Inter team means there isn't sufficient cover at the back and small mistakes are becoming very costly.

As far as Shalke goes we have got a slight advantage that they have recently changed their manager though we still need to be careful as this is the Champions league quarter final and every team at this stage have proved they are worthy of being there, the biggest threat posed to Inter will be Shalke's Raul who has got a huge amount of Champions league experience with his former team Real Madrid and everyone knows he is capable of scoring plenty of goals but if Inter can perform the way we know they can then this should be a fairly easy game for us.

AC Milan v Inter match review & reactions

Last night the derby didn't go according to plan for the Nerazzurri, the match started badly when straight from the kick off Inter were caught sleeping as Milan flew out of the starting blocks and Pato hit the back of the net in just 45 seconds. After that Inter took about 30 minutes to start looking like they could reply but it wasn't meant to be as in the second half Chivu got a red card after which Milan seemed to run rings around Inter which was shown when Pato netted his second, the kick in the teeth really came on 88 minutes when Zanetti gave away a penalty that Cassano put away finishing the game 3-0. All in all it was a terrible match for Inter with Sneijder & Eto'o hardly affecting the game, there were two positives though firstly Julio Cesar had a great game and was Inter's man of the match for me as if it wasn't for him it could have easily been 6-0 to Milan. The second is that the Guiseppe Meazza pitch looked much better after being returfed.

AC Milan v Inter Preview

Well here we are on the eve of the Milan derby after the International break which saw 13 Nerazzurri players representing their countries.  As you know the derby is always an important match for both Milanese teams but this one is set to be extra special as a win for the Nerazzurri will put them a point above Milan with only seven games remaining in the season.  Over the last month many have tryed to tell us that the result of this match won't be decisive to the race for the Scudetto, this i feel has been said to releive some of the pressure by not putting to much emphasis on needing the result from this match, but we all know that even though it won't guarantee the title for either side it will give the winning side a major boost and i wouldn't be suprised if the winner of this match goes on to claim the title.