Oaktree Capital Management

[.h.]

We can moan all we want about Inzaghi, our squad depth, our players or even our management.

But the real problem is here. If we are not allowd to invest (even a reasonable amount) we are really fucked. Even more than we are atm. Our last 3 mercatos where a abomination.

I kinda agree but also disagree. We still have one of the most expensive squads in the league (amortisation+wages). Yes we've squandered money - players like Correa and Arnautovic - but we aren't exactly a shoestring budget team. This is still a team that costs more than it's results justify.

 

[#NotForMe]

I kinda agree but also disagree. We still have one of the most expensive squads in the league (amortisation+wages). Yes we've squandered money - players like Correa and Arnautovic - but we aren't exactly a shoestring budget team. This is still a team that costs more than it's results justify.

What is a justify result in your book?

 

[Puma]

Personally, I feel that Inter crushing Serie A last season has actually backfired. It ensured that Oaktree thought they did not have to invest much in revitalising the squad and that we had a buffer between ourselves and the team's pursuing us. It lulled them into a false sense of security and what they failed to understand is that nothing in football remains the same and the feats and heights of one season will rarely be repeated in the next season.

They also failed to understand that without new players, Inter cannot play differently to the way we did last season. Hence, making us predictable. Many teams have worked out how to play against us and we simply do not have the playing personnel to maintain our game when the substitutes come on and to a greater extent, change our game when we are static and struggling.

I do not believe in spending money on players for the mere sake of spending and appearing to be active in the transfer market. However, at this time of the season, it is apparent that our squad has some real short comings that will in the end damage our prospects of retaining the Scudetto (if they have not already been damaged beyond our ability to recover). For example, a centre back (how long has Acerbi been struggling with injury), a left back, a central midfield player to slot in when Calhanoglu is injured; a player to adequately relieve Mkhitaryan and save him from playing so frequently and upfront, where Inter only have Lautaro and Thuram.

Up front is where the damage has really been done this season. Lautaro's slow half-season start and the missed opportunities and inadequacy of the players to fill in for our starters. If the spurned opportunities and glaring misses were not enough, having the likes of Correa and Arnautovic on our books as alternatives to our starting strikers is a blight and an embarrassment. Not to mention Taremi. All three players have no business at being at Inter.

The ship has sailed this season. We are in the midst of watching Napoli take control of Serie A with a Conte led Napoli that only plays once a week. We simply cannot match them. But in all honesty, I do not see Oaktree taking meaningful steps to rectify our many issues and make us competitive for next season. This team got its best results last season. There will be no repeat and the time has come for significant change in playing personnel which our owners will not facilitate as a result of their refusal to spend.

 

[.h.]

What is a justify result in your book?

over the 4 seasons, I'd say, 2 league wins as a minimum, three CL QFs

 

[BasedGodPunk]

We are without question the best overall and most complete squad in serie a. The fact we aren’t winning vs good teams right now is on Inzaghi. But at the end of the day the defeat yesterday was crushing because it was a reminder that if we don’t win it all this year we’re in serious trouble with oaktree at the helm in the future.

 

[Universe]

Personally, I feel that Inter crushing Serie A last season has actually backfired. It ensured that Oaktree thought they did not have to invest much in the revitalising the squad and that we had a buffer between ourselves and the team's pursuing us. It lulled them into a false sense of security and what they failed to understand is that nothing in football remains the same and the feats and heights of one season will rarely be repeated in the next season.

They also failed to understand that without new players, Inter cannot play differently to the way we did last season. Hence, making us predictable. Many teams have worked out how to play against us and we simply do not have the playing personnel to maintain our game when the substitutes come on and to a greater extent, change our game when we are static and struggling.

I do not believe in spending money on players for the mere sake of spending and appearing to be active in the transfer market However, at this time of the season, it is apparent that our squad has some real short comings that will in the end damage our prospects of retaining the Scudetto (if they have not already been damaged beyond our ability to recover). For example, a centre back (how long has Acerbi been struggling with injury), a left back, a central midfield player to slot in when Calhanoglu is injured; a player to adequately relieve Mkhitaryan and save him from playing so frequently and upfront, where Inter only have Lautaro and Thuram.

Up front is where the damage has really been done this season. Lautaro's slow half-season start and the missed opportunities and inadequacy of the players to fill in for our starters. If the spurned opportunities and glaring misses were not enough, having the likes of Correa and Arnautovic on our books as alternatives to our starting strikers is a blight and an embarrassment. Not to mention Taremi. All three players have no business at being at Inter.

The ship has sailed this season. We are in the midst of watching Napoli take control of Serie A with a Conte led Napoli that only plays once a week. We simply cannot match them. But in all honesty, I do not see Oaktree taking meaningful steps to rectify our many issues and make us competitive for next season. This team got its best results last season. There will be no repeat and the time has come for significant change in playing personnel which our owners will not facilitate as a result of their refusal to spend.

Great post from a great man.

Not only have Napoli taken control of this season, but our complacency and profligacy has also allowed our other rivals to catch up to us. Keep in mind, this squad has not improved since last season. It has in fact, gotten worse in practically every metric.

Don't let the 5th and 8th places of juve and Milan fool you, they're paying the concession for actively working out their issues right now. They're building. We're just stagnating. The cracks are going to hit us like a truck soon.

Acerbi is already gone, and Mkhitaryan's demise is clearer with each passing game. His ball-carrying skills stand out in this team which on average, can't dribble a training cone, but beyond that one attribute, he's about as dangerous as a wet tissue. Sommer is finished, Darmian is at best a backup against bottom half teams, and Calhanoglu's injury record and overall impact feels like it's starting to wane.

Oaktree's approach has been disgusting - signing fucking young nobodies in the hope they might turn out good like Bisseck - who incidentally, is not all that good anyway. Buying packets of pokemon cards type shit. These kinds of hedge fund owners are the absolute worst. They have no soul. Without any genuine ambition to drive a club forward, your design is to merely stay in the sweet mediocrity of receiving CL money with the least amount of investment possible.

 

[#NotForMe]

over the 4 seasons, I'd say, 2 league wins as a minimum, three CL QFs

How many points is equivalent to winning the league? Or it doesn't matter if we win it with 76 points or lost it with 91 points?

 

[#NotForMe]

One of the things Oaktree irks me is, the lottery mentality, like there is investment and then there is lottery, what they are hoping for is lottery.

I am not saying there isn't super cheap players that can turn good, that model can work, but basically we become ATA or Ajax letting the competitive level tank, that will basically hinder the club value and the CL income, also Inter is really not a club for this type of investment.

If you want to make a return on players that is fine, we made profit out of Hakimi and Lukaku, buy quality players that we can increase in value and sell them.
Invest not buying lottery.

 

[Kramerica Industries]

One of the things Oaktree irks me is, the lottery mentality, like there is investment and then there is lottery, what they are hoping for is lottery.

I am not saying there isn't super cheap players that can turn good, that model can work, but basically we become ATA or Ajax letting the competitive level tank, that will basically hinder the club value and the CL income, also Inter is really not a club for this type of investment.

If you want to make a return on players that is fine, we made profit out of Hakimi and Lukaku, buy quality players that we can increase in value and sell them.
Invest not buying lottery.

This is my biggest concern as well, and this is where Oaktree's gonna need to show me something this summer or else I'm going to join the train of thought that says we need them to sell sooner rather than later. I don't think there's anything wrong with scratch-off tickets but as I've written a few times before, that's not the basis for actual squad building. I'm not saying Oaktree needs to open up their wallets and allow for massive transfers necessarily, but if we're getting rid of Correa and Arna's salaries, if we're (hopefully) selling Asllani and Frattesi, and we have decent windfalls from both the CL but also the Club World Cup, and in spite of all of that we don't have sufficient license to spend money to bring reinforcement into the squad? That happens, then Oaktree's not have anything close to our best interests in mind.

I've given them something of a pass for last summer. They took over in mid-May. They weren't actually expecting to own the club. And not for nothing, but just remember what happened in the summer after we last won a Scudetto. Suning sold two of our most important players. At least Oaktree didn't force the sales of key players because of their own financial problems. Frankly, if you want to find the root for our problems today, you only need to go back to that summer. At that time, whether Conte was gonna stick around in the future or not, we had planted the seeds to dominate Italy for years to come, and Suning ripped out the roots almost instantly. I'm not convinced Oaktree is gonna be good ownership for us, I'm pretty sure it's in our best interests that they find a buyer sooner rather than later. But if our biggest criticism is about them not adding to the squad, that's still better than Suning who I'm not convinced would've done any better themselves. Remember that everything involving Oaktree was only possible due to decisions made by Suning, so I still leave them culpable for a lot of problems that hurt us today.

I still think (speaking more broadly now) it's way too early for any of these comments writing off the season yet, though. Ultimately, it's a 3-point deficit with 15 games still to play. Nothing insurmountable about that at all. We finally have some free midweeks coming up for the first time in months, hopefully that'll get a little bit of energy back in our legs.

 

[Il Drago]

over the 4 seasons, I'd say, 2 league wins as a minimum, three CL QFs

Since 2021, Inter have been Scudetto favorites according to bookies every season. And the return is 1 out of 4. Same number of Scudetti with Spalletti and Pioli in the same period while he's coaching more expensive squads.

Simone is saving himself with the results in the cup competitions. In the league he hasn't performed any miracles. If anything, he has underperformed.

Edit: 4th season is still in progress so 1 out of 4 was unfair of me and i retract it. It doesn't look good but let's wait to see how the season ends. But if we lose the Scudetto then we need to accept some hard truths. Sample is gonna be large enough.

 

[.h.]

Since 2021, Inter have been Scudetto favorites according to bookies every season. And the return is 1 out of 4. Same number of Scudetti with Spalletti and Pioli in the same period while he's coaching more expensive squads.

Simone is saving himself with the results in the cup competitions. In the league he hasn't performed any miracles. If anything, he has underperformed.

Agree with this. I can forgive one maybe even two of the scudetti on account of incredible Napoli, but we can't look at this and say we've done anything but underperformed tbh

 

[CafeCordoba]

Nah

 

[#NotForMe]

Box mentality, and not aware of it is scary.
Like an A and a B for grades seems a huge difference, but for a real evaluation of a person's ability, sometimes it is extremely misleading it could be 90 vs 89.
We do these kinda general categorizing cause it is easy and it helps navigating, like all models are wrong but some are useful.
Refusing to even acknowledge it, is very disgusting and ignorant.

I can't even tell if it is trolling or serious, I just have to not take it seriously.

P.S. obviously there are things that have a clear cut difference even just being an inch away, e.g. whether it should be part of a flood hazard zone, if there is a high cliff, then obviously even on a 2D level it is one inch away, it is still a clear cut off line, but imagine it is relatively flat, and you are further away from the river the flood risk should lower gradually, and again using a box mentality here would be dangerous again.

 

[.h.]

Box mentality, and not aware of it is scary.
Like an A and a B for grades seems a huge difference, but for a real evaluation of a person's ability, sometimes it is extremely misleading it could be 90 vs 89.
We do these kinda general categorizing cause it is easy and it helps navigating, like all models are wrong but some are useful.
Refusing to even acknowledge it, is very disgusting and ignorant.

I can't even tell if it is trolling or serious, I just have to not take it seriously.

P.S. obviously there are things that have a clear cut difference even just being an inch away, e.g. whether it should be part of a flood hazard zone, if there is a high cliff, then obviously even on a 2D level it is one inch away, it is still a clear cut off line, but imagine it is relatively flat, and you are further away from the river the flood risk should lower gradually, and again using a box mentality here would be dangerous again.

One clear cut difference is whether you have a trophy or not at the end of the season.

Points aren't even comparable season to season. Different opposition different form, all your points total tells you is the relative runaway of the winner compared to the rest of the league. Losing a title on 95 points is worse than winning a title on 83 points, because at the end of the day, you were 2nd best in one case and best in the other

Refusing to acknowledge that is disgusting and ignorant.

 

[#NotForMe]

So you are saying if everyone is shit, even we are not doing good it is acceptable; however, if we did spectacularly, but we have more weight such as competing or focusing more than just the league with resources not corresponding to the ambition and another team just grind for this year and even sacrifice other cups and next year performance, invest slightly less, but again less ambition, it is our coach's fault?

Also kinda funny you care so much we got an "easy" path to CL final, that you try to discredit the achievement of reaching to the final, but now all in a sudden, it doesn't matter as long as there is a result or not?

 

[.h.]

So you are saying if everyone is shit, even we are not doing good it is acceptable; however, if we did spectacular, but we have more weight such as competing or focusing more than just the league with resources not corresponding to the ambition and another team just grind for this year and even sacrifice other cups and next year performance, invest slightly less, but again less ambition, it is our coach's fault?

that was the most confusing sentence i've ever read. What you're trying to ask is not clear to me.

What I'm trying to say is, considering Inter has been probably the best team on paper in the last 4 years, the fact that we are likely to have only won one scudetto in that time is a real damn shame.

 

[#NotForMe]

that was the most confusing sentence i've ever read. What you're trying to ask is not clear to me.

What I'm trying to say is, considering Inter has been probably the best team on paper in the last 4 years, the fact that we are likely to have only won one scudetto in that time is a real damn shame.

Yea it might be a bit confusing cause it is not straightforward. In short, you have to look more than resources input for your results expectations, and the mentality is I just have to outrun the other person when a bear is chasing, is not a good way to evaluate how fast that person runs. That is what I am trying to get to.


"probably the best team on paper in the last 4 years" is it though?
Or it was the tactics and grint that made us shinier than we truly are?

 

[.h.]

Yea it might be a bit confusing cause it is not straightforward. In short, you have to look more than resources input for your results expectations, and the mentality is I just have to outrun the other person when a bear is chasing, is not a good way to evaluate how fast that person runs. That is what I am trying to get to.


"probably the best team on paper in the last 4 years" is it though?
Or it was the tactics and grint that made us shinier than we truly are?

but.. we arent 100m sprinters. I dont give a fuck how fast we run. I just care that we run faster than the other person.

At the end of the day, this is a sport, and sport is about winning trophies. The return of (meaningful) trophies we've had under Inzaghi is sadly a bit disappointing.

Best team on paper - we've had one of the most expensive teams in the league consistently in the last 4 years. We can sit here and talk about underinvestment, but reality is, there's been significant investment - at least via salaries - it just hasnt necessarily been spent all correctly.

The success of sporting eras are measured in trophies, and unfortunately right NOW to me it looks like Inzaghi's era will be ok but underwhelming compared to what it should/could have been.

 

[Kramerica Industries]

I still think (speaking more broadly now) it's way too early for any of these comments writing off the season yet, though. Ultimately, it's a 3-point deficit with 15 games still to play. Nothing insurmountable about that at all. We finally have some free midweeks coming up for the first time in months, hopefully that'll get a little bit of energy back in our legs.

So I'm just going to ask again why the hell we're making it sound like the Scudetto is already lost when the bolded is the current situation?

It's fucking hilarious, honestly. Many people - including people on this forum - will gas up Milan after their January window, make it sound like their current 8 point deficit on Lazio and Fiorentina entering the weekend (joint-holders of 4th place, and Italy getting a 5th place spot through coefficients is by no means a guarantee) will easily be surmounted by the end of the season, they'll get 4th place*, shit's on the up for them, all that stuff, and in the same breath so many of us make it sound like what amounts to a one-game deficit in the table on Napoli with 15 games still to place is already in "ok, shows over, give them the medals right now" territory. It's fucking ridiculous.

There isn't a fanbase on earth that suffers from grass is greener derangement syndrome more than Inter fans. We're fucking hopeless.

*Btw, the obvious other alternative would be Milan getting in next year's Champions League by winning this year's edition...mods, if you're reading this, feel free to give me a multi-month ban from this forum if this fucking Milan side win the Champions League. No chance in hell that's gonna happen.

 

[.h.]

So I'm just going to ask again why the hell we're making it sound like the Scudetto is already lost when the bolded is the current situation?

It's fucking hilarious, honestly. Many people - including people on this forum - will gas up Milan after their January window, make it sound like their current 8 point deficit on Lazio and Fiorentina entering the weekend (joint-holders of 4th place, and Italy getting a 5th place spot through coefficients is by no means a guarantee) will easily be surmounted by the end of the season, they'll get 4th place*, shit's on the up for them, all that stuff, and in the same breath so many of us make it sound like what amounts to a one-game deficit in the table on Napoli with 15 games still to place is already in "ok, shows over, give them the medals right now" territory. It's fucking ridiculous.

There isn't a fanbase on earth that suffers from grass is greener derangement syndrome more than Inter fans. We're fucking hopeless.

*Btw, the obvious other alternative would be Milan getting in next year's Champions League by winning this year's edition...mods, if you're reading this, feel free to give me a multi-month ban from this forum if this fucking Milan side win the Champions League. No chance in hell that's gonna happen.

Because our h2h record against big clubs has been ass so far this season, we've thrown a number of games we should have won, and Napoli look like a fucking grinding machine?

Yes of course they could still lose it, but I'd say it's quite unlikely from here. My personal prediction is we will never for the rest of the season have the league "in our control" from where we are now. Can see how it goes obviously but it seems fairly likely.