Ranieri at Inter Milan & Leicester - The Similarities

[RizLCFC]

Found this article from when Ranieri was managing Inter in 2012 and they were in a relegation battle, spot the similarities! 

 

The week 26 match against Catania at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza was being considered a last chance saloon for Claudio Ranieri and just to add more pressure to the Italian coach’s situation, earlier in the day the man most people are touting as his replacement, Andre Villas-Boas, was dismissed from Chelsea FC after an unconvincing season in the English Premier League.

 

Ranieri himself must have realised he really is close to losing his job as for this match he decided to return to his winning formula of the 4-4-2 formation, opting to put our under fire trequartista Wesley Sneijder on the bench instead of risking once again playing him behind the strikers. Also despite being called up to the initial squad, Claudio decided to play it safe and drop Maicon from the match squad completely as he is still feeling some discomfort in his knee that was injured in the Champions league match against Marseille.

 

This meant that Javier Zanetti and Yuto Nagatomo took up the full back positions either side of Lucio and Walter Samuel, this is all well and good apart from he started Zanetti as left back and Nagatomo in his weaker right-back position. This of course is from the coach that has publicly said in the past that he’s not convinced by Zanetti as left back?!? New boy Juan Jesus took a step towards making his debut but unfortunately spent the entire match on the bench, this was a disappointment to me as I’m looking forward to seeing what the Brazilian defender can do, and there were times during the match where a quicker defender would have been very useful for Inter.

 

The midfield and attacking players consisted of Marco Davide Faraoni, Esteban Cambiasso, Angelo Palombo, Diego Forlan, Diego Milito and Giampaolo Pazzini, which when the starting XI was announced I presumed meant that Ranieri was going to match Catania’s 4-3-3 like for like. What was I thinking? Of course he wasn’t, instead he stuck Forlan out on the left midfield, leaving our unconvincing pairing of Milito and Pazzini up front alone. Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of both strikers but they are far too similar in playing styles to play convincingly together, with them both making the same runs and thinking the same way about positioning I believe that if Ranieri played either one of them partnered with Forlan instead then we’d start to see a more dangerous front line at Inter.

 

So the first half ended with Catania two goals in front and most of the Inter team looking their age and showing no obvious signs of a real comeback. During the half time break I wanted to see Ranieri take off Pazzini who had been extremely quiet in the first half, move Forlan to his position and bring on Juan Jesus to play the left-back position with Zanetti moving to right-back and Nagatomo taking up the left midfield but as usual Ranieri did his own thing and took off one of our bright youngsters to replace him with Sneijder.

 

This match showed without doubt that the biggest problem is the fact that our aging team have all hit the downturn in their abilities at the same time and it is depressingly apparent now that players like Samuel, Cambiasso and even Zanetti aren’t the players they used to be and they need to step back now and make room for the new generation. I’m not saying they should not have any involvement what so ever but I am saying they shouldn’t be considered first team regulars for every game.

This was emphasised when at around the 60th minute Ranieri made a double substitution of both central midfielders Cambiasso and Palombo to replace them with youngsters Joel Obi and Andrea Poli. At this point I’d just like to make clear that the Interisti that jeered Cambiasso as he left the pitch should be ashamed of themselves for turning on one of our legends and making him cry, he really didn’t deserve that as he has always worked tirelessly for the good of Inter and even though he didn’t play to his best in this game he was by no means terrible. In my opinion there is never an excuse for fans giving verbal abuse to their own teams players, how can that possibly ever have a positive effect.

My one huge criticism would be how painfully slow and unaware our center-backs Lucio and Samuel were when called upon to defend and more than a couple of times during the second half Julio Cesar actually had to leave the area and play as a sweeper behind them to stop Catania’s counter attacks.

 

This of course isn’t news to anyone except the Inter management who just don’t seem to see a need in strengthening our defensive line.
That brings me to my final point which is although Ranieri got a result of sorts in this match I honestly think it’s time he parted way with Inter as it is all too clear that he can’t see the bigger picture to revamp and rejuvenate the Inter squad. As you may remember at the start of this article I mentioned that Villas-Boas has been fired by Chelsea, and it is well known that Moratti would like him back in the Inter camp.

 

The subject of who should replace Ranieri has been widely discussed on Twitter and like many Interisti my preference would be Pep Gaurdiola or even Zdenek Zeman, though neither would be available until the summer. Villas-Boas on the other hand is available and although I think he’d do well a lot of people are unconvinced about his ability after his time in the Premier League so what I would propose is to replace Ranieri with Villas-Boas as a caretaker coach until the end of the season and see if he’s up to the job at Inter and then make the long-term decision when all the possibilities have been looked in to properly. Let’s face it he can’t do any worse than Ranieri and we’d know for definite if he has the potential to lead Inter back to glory.

[Soar Fox]

*2 slow centre backs (check)

* 4-4-2 (check)

* Replacing a bright youngster (check)

[Tuna]

However, on 26 March 2012, following a 0–2 defeat against Juventus and after a run of just two wins in their last 13 games and eventual elimination by Marseille in the Champions League, Ranieri was dismissed.

[st albans fox]

I have gone on record posting that Claudio has a record of doing well first season and then failing to meet those heights thereafter. problem he has here is he will never get close to what he did. wind back a year and would we be fairly content to be 17 points from 18 games ? 

 

And failing to meet those heights could be anywhere 2nd downwards! 

[EGBFitness]

5 hours ago, st albans fox said:

I have gone on record posting that Claudio has a record of doing well first season and then failing to meet those heights thereafter. problem he has here is he will never get close to what he did. wind back a year and would we be fairly content to be 17 points from 18 games ? 

 

And failing to meet those heights could be anywhere 2nd downwards! 

The Italian Alan Pardew 

[Guest Col city fan]

44 minutes ago, EGBFitness said:

The Italian Alan Pardew 

Blimey! They had a rubbish midfield too!

 

To be fair, there are too many similarities there for my liking.

[wardyfox86]

55 minutes ago, EGBFitness said:

The Italian Alan Pardew 

This is actually accurate, neither manager seems able to arrest a slide. Once the rot sets in, they are either to stubborn or too blind to change anything. 

[HankMarvin]

I wonder if we we are losing in Jan it will because we are missing the AFCON players

[Tielemans63]

7 hours ago, RizLCFC said:

Ranieri himself must have realised he really is close to losing his job as for this match he decided to return to his winning formula of the 4-4-2 formation

He is aware of the existence of other possible formations then. 

 

Ironic that it's unwillingness to try anything but 4-4-2 that might lose him his current job.

[Number 6]

I reckon he's got until the Sevilla fixtures to turn it around. If we're showing no signs of improving and are out of CL, I think some serious considerations about his position will be made. 

[adejo92]

De Ja Vu

[Struwwelpeter60]

14 hours ago, RizLCFC said:

it is depressingly apparent now that players like Samuel, Cambiasso and even Zanetti aren’t the players they used to be and they need to step back now and make room for the new generation.

Two years later Pearson signed Cambiasso (34 years old).

What does that tell us about Pearson?

[trabuch]

He won the league with us. He'd never done that before anywhere else. The difference.

[UPinCarolina]

8 hours ago, Col city fan said:

Blimey! They had a rubbish midfield too!

 

To be fair, there are too many similarities there for my liking.

Claudio has got to be in the midst of a deep deja vu.

[Bob Weasel Fox]

1 hour ago, adejo92 said:

De Ja Vu

No he isn't available until the summer . . .

[trabuch]

And hahaha Leicester and Inter - same breath. We are selfie entitled.