Inter market, Champions League defeat weighs: ready to strike in extremis
Inter’s knockout on the seventh day of the Champions League single round weighs in no small measure on the ambitions of the Nerazzurri, who may now need more than, depending on the results of the other matches, a win in Dortmund on the final day to avoid the playoff hurdle involving teams from ninth to 24th place. The Nerazzurri, after the initial Gabriel Jesus-Sucic back-and-forth, then gave way to the Brazilian’s second goal and Gyokeres’s signed tic-tac-toe in the final game.
The defeat in Europe rekindles the spotlight on the market, with just under two weeks to go before the winter session ends. Under the insiders’ magnifying glass is the lack of alternatives on the right flank, with Luis Henrique who, in the absence of Denzel Dumfries, has played as a starter in as many as 12 of the last 13 games. The Brazilian, against Arsenal, played another 77 minutes, before being replaced by Bonny: a bold move on Cristian Chivu’s part, but one that did not pay off.
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Beyond and beyond what Beppe Marotta stated just on the sidelines of the match (“It is a poor market in which there are no bargains that can raise the level of our squad” he told Sky Sport microphones), the Nerazzurri management could go back to thinking about a new entry in the squad on the right side, with the name of Ivan Perisic, already back in fashion in recent days, remaining at the top of the list. The Croatian, already a Nerazzurri from 2015 to 2019 and from 2020 to 2022, has again been approached by the Beneamata even though his current club, Psv, has repeatedly raised the wall.
The Eindhoven club is in the fight for qualification to the Champions League knockout stage and the match scheduled for Wednesday in Newcastle could give further indications: a defeat could in fact lead Psv to reflect on the possibility of making cash and reinvesting on younger players, training them in a league, the Eredivisie, that is literally dominating this season.
In the meantime, Inter is about to welcome a new central defender to join the Nerazzurri as a prospect: it is Croatian Leon Jakirovic, class of 2008, for whom the agreement with Dinamo Zagreb seems to be done. The Pozega-born 18-year-old would first join the ranks of the Under 23, in Serie C, while still training with the first team as well.
