Inter should have believed in me, says Gasperini

17 October 2011 20:05

Former short-lived Inter Milan coach Gian Piero Gasperini has claimed that the Italian giants should have believed in him rather than sacking him.

Gasperini lasted just five games in the job, losing four of those and drawing the other one.

And although his successor Claudio Ranieri began his reign with successive victories, he has since lost his last two games in charge.

It has left Inter in a state of crisis following six defeats in their nine matches this season.

And Gasperini feels he was hard done by.

"Rather than just giving me more time they needed to believe in me, they needed the belief to follow my path," he told an Italian television programme.

"From the moment they went looking for me to bring me onto the Inter bench, they should have been convinced in my ideas and both supported and defended them."

Gasperini was well-known in Italian football for playing a back three rather than a back four.

But having lost their opening game of the season, Inter president Massimo Moratti made it clear he favoured a return to a more conventional system.

That led to Gasperini changing his system several times, but never resulting in an improvement in results.

"I felt that between myself and the club our footballing concepts were a long way apart, I was convinced that with this team it would be possible to do something good," he added.

"If the president had different ideas, then why did he choose me?"

Gasperini also complained that he didn't receive the kind of backing he expected in the summer transfer window.

"It didn't go as I expected, there were some difficulties and I didn't expect (Samuel) Eto'o to leave," he said.

"I was expecting a forward line made up of the Cameroonian, (Giampaolo) Pazzini and (Rodrigo) Palacio, I wasn't interested in (Alexis) Sanchez, (Carlos) Tevez or (Ezequiel) Lavezzi.

"The most serious thing is making out that the problem was the three-man defence and that it was enough to put players in their (previous) positions to solve the problems.

"That was a lack of respect towards me. Before the championship started the president and the club had already delegitimised me, they spoke about a project but in reality there never was one."

Not only did Gasperini lose Eto'o before the season began but Inter missed out on Palacio and bought Diego Forlan instead, even though he was ineligible for the Champions League.

They also let Goran Pandev leave on loan while bringing in Mauro Zarate in a similar deal.

That left Inter lightweight up front in Europe and with an unfamiliar new forward line in the league.

Source: AFP