Hope you guys don't mind if I copy paste this post below from bibonzo from the Writers thread. It's long, but insightful and relevant to the discussion in this thread.
Originally Posted by bibonzo
First lets address the transfer part. Out of 5 player that were sold only Balotelli played a part in the whole season, others that featured from that list in a couple of games did more bad than good. Balo while he had a big impact at times, nobody can deny this, he evened it out with his bad performance. He got red cards when he started and played totally opposite than he was instructed costing us points in the process. That's why majority were for his sale and not against, he had a big impact but it worked in both ways. If anything I only agree on this that Benitez never got his joker player that he would use when things are ruff. Our only mistake on mercato.
Now to transfer targets. Bare in mind Rafa had a vision we will play sexy possession football, he came here with the intention to prove something. Realistically we could get Kuyt, Mascherano and Sculli. In fact this are the player he wanted and asked for! Fabregas was mentioned but in reality that was more fiction than reality.
Kuyt is no Balo, he plays and contributes when a team plays good around him. Hardly a game changer more a support player that does a fair amount of dirty work in his position. Could he improve us? Hardly looking at our style and tactics. He has very little pace, passing is average, can't create something out of nothing and his goal and assist ratio isn't really unbelievable. Actually I believe he would fit right in more miserable performances with the way we are playing.
Mascherano, eh what to say? A world class DM. Again why would we get a another DM when we want to play possession football with 3 man midfield. Hes great at everything he does except passing and spreading the play witch is our problem. 30million is a waste of money for something we already have in no less than 4 options (Cambiasso, Zanetti, Mariga and Muntari - even if Muntari sucks its still doesn't change the fact we have options). What we needed is a Schweinsteiger/Banega/Lampard type of player. Benitez never asked for this type of player.
Sculli: If Kuyt never fitted there is no point in even discussing this. I would take Biabiany and Couthino any day.
So the whole point here is that we had no realistic targets that would improve things over the current setup of players. The ones that would give us the edge had a price tag of around 40 million and on top of that they were all tied and happy where they are. Even further we wasted the whole summer trying bringing Ben's men (Mascha, Kuyt) because he probably gave his word to Branca that they will come if we offer fair deals. Both gave the boot 2 days before the transfer closed. Miracles are not possible in such a short period. In the end it was not a big issue. We had a fantastic squad that did great and the general consensus was that we will improve in winter if needed. Later on I will compare the 2 systems between Bens and Mou's Inter that may share some light on why do key players perform so bad. But first things first.
I'll reanalyze as short as I can 2 years Mou had and the whole thing that "he got what he wanted" in transfers. In his first season he got what he wanted and everybody knows how it went. All 3 signings that costed 60 million were flops. He quickly reverted back to what Mancini used and made the most of it pushing Ibra to his season all high ever. We also had a fairly respectable kick out from CL from Manchester (finalist in the end), while the first game was bad that finished 0:0 we put up a fair fight in the second leg were we looked like a respectable team opposed to years under Mancini were we were embarrassed regularly.
That story ended and we got to last year. Branca secured Milito and Motta for Mou before the Ibra saga. This were supposed to be the only signings for Mourinho since the management decided they wont give him what he wants because last time it was a disaster. So they asked him what type of player he needs and they will show him realistic targets, after that he approved guys that he liked. When the option to sell Ibra occurred Mourinho was heavily against it but it went ahead, if it was up to him Ibra would still be here. But it never was in his hands. Branca got him Eto in return and promised a playmaker since he just lost Ibra. Snijder was a option and he got him in the last minute.
Lucio was surplus at Bayern and declared useless. Free transfer.
Sneijder was a wash out from Real, and he just had the worst season of his life.
Motta was a wash out from Barca that had a reputation of a injury prone player that played on and off. After several years of struggling threw mid table clubs he put 1 solid season for Genoa.
Eto a world class poacher that had a reputation of doing only good if he has good supply. In Mous eyes certainly a downgrade from Ibra.
Milito a player that had a proven record at medium level. Many question marks on how will he cope at Inter.
All of them costed around 41 million, less than what Inter got for Ibra alone. Not exactly cream of the crop if you see what I mean. Hardly choices Mou made since he had a taste in more in form, more expensive people.
So he lost his best guy, got a bunch of wash outs and got the pressure he needs to deliver in Europe. He integrated them in a completely new system in record time and rolled on. They all played well more or less. Now lets talk about tactics and the way this 2 Inters are completely different one from another despite sharing the same players and the system.
Mou's biggest characteristic was that the team was able to adopt to situations on the field and there opponents. While many refer to it as counter attacking football it was mostly direct football. The whole philosophy was to get in a scoring situation as fast as possible without to much bs. Something Porto, Chelsea and today Real plays. We had games that we controlled completely in every aspect and games that were pure counter attacking football that was heavily based on defending. Every player had a role. We had Zanetti or Cambiasso covering Maicons spot when he roamed forward, we had wingers tracking back and a very mobile 3 man midfield that effectively pressured part of the field were our opponent had the ball. Sneijder was placed much deeper and he was in charge for distribution and long balls. Milito was left alone and wide positions and placement of our wingers gave him space and opportunity to do what he does best since hes a gap exploiter.
I mentioned this because this is were the problem for Rafa's Inter lies and why some players under perform. We play in the same system but its not the same. Our wingers are turned in to inside forwards and they are given no defensive duties. Our 3 man midfield is turned in to 2 man midfield. Sneijder is placed so high that we can see him 80% of time standing right next to our solo striker no matter who that is, with this move Benitez effectively robbed us from his two biggest strengths. Long accurate deadly balls that resulted in many goals last season and the opportunity for him to dictate our play. What he does now is he overlaps with whoever is our striker and shots whenever he has a chance, cant blame him really since we press so high there is no room to do anything else.
Eto is given green light to enter Militos area when they both play whenever he wants, we stack up in attack in around 10 meters with all of our att options. So far he manged to get the most of it but he wont be able to produce every game without support. Hes form will decline and we will be in deep shit. Actually it already started.
Maicon was never unbelievable at defending, he was solid but most of the time under Mou he had help or somebody closing the gap when he leaves and goes forward. Why we see so little of it under Ben is because he gets no support at all and the gap he leaves stays open. Therefor he is instructed to stay put more and hes mostly pined down by the opposition who are lurking around his area. Same story with Chivu who has real problems with speedy players, he was fairly good under Mou.
We are instructed to play as high as Barca. We have slow and big CB's, this situation hardly helps them. They are left most of time dealing with fast wingers and att on the brake that beat them quite easily. Now that Lucio was given green light to ram whenever he wants forward hardly helps the situation, this is something Mou limited to a absolute minimum(Lucio stayed at his place 99% of time). When we do get the ball players tend to slow it down and play as opposed to Mou's system where it was the sole purpose to hit opponents as fast as possible on a unorganized defense.
Why Milito sucks so much? Because hes a gap exploiter and he will never work in this type of system. Rollback and see most of his goals. Fast brake he gets the ball usually behind or between the defense and shoots. He never dribbled past 5 defenders. Since we slow our game, there is no one to put a long ball (Snijder as striker) he gets lost. He is constantly marked in small space by several defenders and since most teams bunker down there is no space to exploit or move to. The fact that Sneijder and Eto both stack up around him doesn't help ether. We have absolutely no width all players move inside. Our play is orchestrated by Zanetti, Canbiasso or Stankovic. There is no plan on how to play the team just moves the ball around and then somebody, mostly Eto or Sneijder, shot from somewhere.
Benitez absolutely has no clue on how to use this guys nor does he have any gameplan ready.
On to injuries since they seem to be the main problem. Sure I don't deny they had a impact but they were not as bad from the start. They got unbelievable bad just a week ago, Benitez still had a more than a respectable team to play. Mou had his problems during the season, he lost Chivu for most of the season, Snijder was banned and injured for short periods same as Motta, Cambiasso, Samuel, balo was put in the stands........etc. The only difference is that Benitez had them all at once. But they are all short term except for Samuel and they affected only 1 game completely. Mou worked without any defenders in his first season for more than a month and he still finished in style. As far as the bench remark goes show me a top team that has a better bench and skip Barca while your at it. The bench is about having solid players and we have exactly that. Nobody has world class players on the bench!
The problem is team played bad long before injuries pooped out, so we can have a nice debate on how much would it help. We had 2 good half's and 2 good games so far, we beaten Roma in supercopa who were a total mess at the time and we trashed Werder 4:0 that was in a relegation zone in Germany that conceded 3 goals per game against everybody. We had Tottenham trashed because they were scared, in the second half they pulled 3 back threw Bale that destroyed us in the return leg. Funny how he didn't put this type of performances against anybody else in England. Out of 3 derbies we got a point from possible 9 at home against Juve. Athletico trashed us, Twente played on pair with us and teams from relegation zone Lecce and Brescia made a name for themselves. Actually the only respectable victory we got under Benitez was a 0:1 at Palermo witch was in reality a bad game where we pulled one from Eto in a more than even game, it also needs to be noted Palermo is less than impressive so far.
Benitez's Inter wins less than 40% of its games(his usual percent at liverpool), that means we barely win every other game. Inter is known for strong starts in post Calciopoli era and both Mou and Mancini busted around 70% wins at this very same time under there control. Inter always dipped in form after the winter if we play this bad now I'm really scared how it will look then. Both M&M have a record of 62% wins during there time in all competitions. Right now Eto is involved in 45% of every goal we made, Ibra was involved in only 15% during the so called one man show era. We have the worst scoring record in the last 8 years in Seria A scoring only 13 goals from 12 games compared to last season when we had close to 30. Aperantlly we are playing attacking football compared to last season, a neutral would not agree.
In the end Beitez was brought for continuity (Moratti exact words) nobody asked him to invent something better. He was chosen because Pools style was similar. So from were the fuck did he get the idea to play like Barca?
Seriously how the fuck this doesn't worry you or that Benitez doesn't have anything to do with it? If anything Juve is the prime example how some player function better under a competent coach. Did Obi, Mariga or other players had a though WC? His over stressing players with his shitty training. I don't know who can we get but Benitez needs to move on simple as that. He might not be a bad coach but he just doesn't fit here.
ps. sorry for the mistakes I'm sure there are many, I'm not good at English and it took me a long time to wright this
10 years of FIF
its been there for few months now 
