Football
Ben Gladwell, Italy correspondent 7y

Inter Milan 'suffering' from lack of stability - Luisito Suarez

Inter Milan great Luisito Suarez says the Nerazzurri need to find stability if they are to become a force again.

The 81-year-old Spaniard spent nine years with Inter in the 1960s, winning the Scudetto three times as well as lifting the European Cup twice with the Milanese club. He also sat on their bench as manager for a year in 1974-75 and returned on a caretaker basis twice in the 1990s.

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport, he said that he is reminded by those times when coaches came and went when he looks at today's Inter, and it is this lack of continuity which he believes is stifling their progress.

"It's hard to give a judgment without getting it wrong," he said. "This team is so irregular that anything you do say risks being a gamble. Maybe the players are suffering from the constant changes, and there have been a lot of these at Inter.

"But now the time has come for the team to wake up and do a bit more. They may not be a great team, but they are better than their league position. They are not giving as good as they should.

"The problem is much greater, though, because Inter have been through too many changes in such a short space of time and the spark given by a new coach is not enough. You can't tell who is really in charge. Who decided to sack [Frank] De Boer? Who appointed [Stefano] Pioli? Who is running the transfer market? But let's not get too carried away with this because it could become an excuse for the players, and that would not be necessary."

Suarez is not missing a leader only off the field, but he is not convinced that Mauro Icardi is the right man to be their captain on it.

"If you just have a captain because you need one, then you can pick anybody to do it, otherwise you need to go for somebody with more experience, with a good character and a different personality," he said.

"When you pick a young captain like Icardi, things become difficult, but he needs to remind himself that he is the captain of Inter and not just any old side."

Suarez also believes that the Suning Group, who completed their takeover of the Nerazzurri last summer, are showing that they lack experience in running an Italian football club, even if he is sure that they mean well.

"It seems like they have got good intentions and they have already made their first financial efforts, but now they have the most difficult part to deal with -- bringing total clarity to who is in charge and structuring themselves as a club.

"I would start off by not making the age old mistake of buying three or four players for €30-40 million who are of the same value as what they already have in the squad. They did this already with Joao Mario, who is just the same as [Marcelo] Brozovic. It's best to buy just one or two players who really increase the value.

"They need to do three things: establish who will be the coach they want to try to start a new cycle with, give full power to a general manager and identify somebody who can provide a union between the team and the club. They need to copy what Juve did. Go back to the old days to try to win."

Inter are currently ninth in Serie A with a deficit of eight points on city rivals AC Milan in third. De Boer was sacked after just three months in charge with Pioli winning two, drawing one and losing one of his three Serie A games in charge.

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