Inter - Genoa (28 Feb 21) [3-0]

[Raul Duke]

And, I'm definitely not taking any sides here. I can see faults in both the coach and the player.

At the end of the day, this is the only reasonable position.

I’ve put myself in team Conte in this instance because much of the blame directed at Conte’s handling of Eriksen seemed absurd. Though, I think Uni’s posts have been more or less on point. Other than that Pringles guy, I can’t think of any posters that hold an irrational hatred of Eriksen, the same can’t be said of Conte.

Ultimately, the player on the pitch has more agency than the coach. Eriksen playing shit can most easily be attributed to Eriksen, likewise the praise for Eriksen playing well mostly has to be directed at the player himself.

 

[Bluenine]

From Uni's last post, it appears our difference of opinion is just a matter of a few degrees. Could Conte have gotten Eriksen integrated sooner? Sure, I agree. The only diff is that I don't think the blame for the delay is solely on Conte, I think Eriksen takes his share of this blame too.

But it doesn't really matter now, they got there so this argument is increasingly moot. Eriksen is starting to look like a part of our starting XI and clearly that is to the credit of both the player and the coach. So I guess it doesn't really matter whether Conte gave Eriksen a "fair shot" before or was it just "tough love" or something else.

I can see faults in both the coach and the player.

This is pretty much what I am saying too. Plus I give a lot of credit to both the player and the coach in the way they recovered from this.

 

[Il Drago]

From memory, even when Eriksen was benched, Conte retained the 3-4-1-2 playing Barella and others in the hole. Presumably in anticipation of fitting Eriksen in the future. In retrospect that formation didn’t work out for us at all and Conte eventually aborted it.

Barella started playing in the hole only this season. Last season it was Brozovic against Roma, his worst game ever since Spalletti changed his position, and then it was Valero for the rest of the reason.

The thing i hate the most on this forum is people getting sorted into sides, us vs. them. I only belong at the side of Inter. But if i have to belong at one side i guess i am team Eriksen.

Back to the topic, in hindsight Conte's biggest mistake was he immmediately dismissed the idea of Eriksen playing as a mezzala in a midfield trio. We wasted a year because of it. But i can understand it. I can understand his decision to switch to a system with a trequartista in order to accomodate Eriksen when he first joined Inter. My issues with Conte are:

1) He didn't waste any time to bench him for 35 year old Borja Valero in a period the team basically had nothing to play for. We were basically out of the scudetto race after the loss in Turin, top 4 was more or les secured and at a time Eriksen needed consistent playing time in order to adjust to a new league, a new team and a new system he was benched by a veteran who was expected to leave at the end of the season.

2) Thankfully he eventually realised the 3-4-1-2 was dysfunctional and he switched back to 3-5-2 (funnily enough Bergamo is always the place where Conte comes to his senses) which gave us a good run of games till the EL final. But instead of sticking with it and working with Eriksen in order to adjust to a mezzala role he switched back to a 3-4-1-2 in 2020/21 preseason for reasons only he knows that led us to a very poor start of a season with Barella the only player to give decent performances in the "1"(Eriksen, Sensi and Vidal were also used unsuccessfully in the trequartista role).

Thankfully Suning situation saved us from ourselves, Eriksen ended up staying and coach and player worked to find a compromise which was the best option for Inter. At the end of the day that's the only thing that matters, the good of Inter. Not Conte. Not Eriksen. Inter.

Now we can finally enjoy a fully functioning midfield so it's time to move on from this saga.

 

[Harpsabu]

Barella started playing in the hole only this season. Last season it was Brozovic against Roma, his worst game ever since Spalletti changed his position, and then it was Valero for the rest of the reason.

The thing i hate the most on this forum is people getting sorted into sides, us vs. them. I only belong at the side of Inter. But if i have to belong at one side i guess i am team Eriksen.

Back to the topic, in hindsight Conte's biggest mistake was he immmediately dismissed the idea of Eriksen playing as a mezzala in a midfield trio. We wasted a year because of it. But i can understand it. I can understand his decision to switch to a system with a trequartista in order to accomodate Eriksen when he first joined Inter. My issues with Conte are:

1) He didn't waste any time to bench him for 35 year old Borja Valero in a period the team basically had nothing to play for. We were basically out of the scudetto race after the loss in Turin, top 4 was more or les secured and at a time Eriksen needed consistent playing time in order to adjust to a new league, a new team and a new system he was benched by a veteran who was expected to leave at the end of the season.

2) Thankfully he eventually realised the 3-4-1-2 was dysfunctional and he switched back to 3-5-2 (funnily enough Bergamo is always the place where Conte comes to his senses) which gave us a good run of games till the EL final. But instead of sticking with it and working with Eriksen in order to adjust to a mezzala role he switched back to a 3-4-1-2 in 2020/21 preseason for reasons only he knows that led us to a very poor start of a season with Barella the only player to give decent performances in the "1"(Eriksen, Sensi and Vidal were also used unsuccessfully in the trequartista role).

Thankfully Suning situation saved us from ourselves, Eriksen ended up staying and coach and player worked to find a compromise which was the best option for Inter. At the end of the day that's the only thing that matters, the good of Inter. Not Conte. Not Eriksen. Inter.

Now we can finally enjoy a fully functioning midfield so it's time to move on from this saga.

I'm more camp pro conte in this whole thing, I agree largely with what you said though about inter. I'm the same, I don't give a fuck who is playing or managing inter as long as it means the best for inter. If we were lingering in 4th or 5th place and out of the UCL I'd be conte out. But I'm happy with what we are doing.
Anyway, my two biggest gripes with the eriksen saga

1) eriksen got chances in centre mid and attacking mid. Its all well and good now bashing conte for not playing him in centre mid earlier, but as Bluenine shown with the quotes yesterday many of the same members now criticising how long it took were annoyed that conte was playing eriksen there and not as an attacking midfielder. Hindsight is a great thing ofcourse.

2) eriksens performances were really poor. As the many arguments had said, Eriksen had already really lost his place at spurs with mourinho and was playing a bit less under poch too. Spurs fans had said for a good 18 months before he was sold he wasn't the same player. His performances here were largely bad. I know you mention valero honestly valero looked better than him in many games last season. Eriksen was so slow and lackadaisical. The guy is one of our highest paid players, you would surely be expecting him to make an instant impact. If eriksen can't prove himself with performances to be better than gagliardini and valero last season that's on him. For his salary and for what he has shown before there's little room for excuses to be honest.

That's my opinion on eriksen. The Danish members here always think we are butthurt about his hat trick lol not at all, we know what he can do. We know how good he can be. I'm just very disappointed by what he has shown so far based off that because I know he can be amazing.

Anyway, he's performing better now, I'd like to see him get more goals and assists because again he is more than capable, so let's hope. If eriksen starts to perform better consistently then that's better for inter and I'm happy

 

[Puma]

It is ironic that the anti-Conte posters always talk about our coach's high wages but they seem to suffer from amnesia when Eriksen was putting in subpar performances as our second highest earner.

Remember, it is always going to be on Conte's fault because he is a Gobbo.

 

[brehme1989]

It is ironic that the anti-Conte posters always talk about our coach's high wages but they seem to suffer from amnesia when Eriksen was putting in subpar performances as our second highest earner.

Remember, it is always going to be on Conte's fault because he is a Gobbo.

The problem lies with finding the actual subpar performances of Eriksen, comparing them to the rest of the team as the entire system was flawed and understanding that he was forced to play in a role and system that was poor and definitely not built around him. For some reason, that evades the critics of Eriksen because they assume that Eriksen being a big name and high paid player should automatically be the best player at the game at all times. Which is ironic since that does not apply to the highest earner and we ignore pretty much all the negatives due to some positives.

Conte is not criticized because he's earning too much, he's criticizing for failing to live up to his price tag because he crashed out of Europe twice in a row. The second one even more pathetic as we at least were hoping that the post-season isolated Europa League run would mark the beginning of a different Conte, but instead it just verified that he cannot handle 2 high difficulty games a week. The standards for a high earning coach are different than a player. That's also what makes them more expendable.

 

[Candreva Crosses]

People have problem choosing side and here I am thanking both sides since I agree with them both Valid points everywhere, a joy to read these last couple of pages.