Roberto Mancini’s job will not be under threat if Inter fail to qualify for the Champions League, assures President Erick Thohir.
The Nerazzurri will find themselves 10 points from the third and final Champions League position should Napoli beat Genoa tonight, but the patron assures Mancio’s job is safe – and denies the Coach has a get-out clause.
Roberto Mancini’s job will not be under threat if Inter fail to qualify for the Champions League, assures President Erick Thohir.
The Nerazzurri will find themselves 10 points from the third and final Champions League position should Napoli beat Genoa tonight, but the patron assures Mancio’s job is safe – and denies the Coach has a get-out clause.
“We signed him [Mancini] for three-and-a-half years, and longer if he wants,” Thohir explained to Goal Indonesia.
“These rumours about imaginary clauses are not true. We want the team to have stability, because as I’ve said before, building a team takes years.
“This is why we’ve focused on Mancini, he shares our vision, and has the same desire to improve the team, even if any spending is inevitably linked to Financial Fair Play.
“He will not be like an English manager, every transfer will be agreed between me, him and the club hierarchy.
“Neither myself or Mancini will take decisions individually, we’ll work together to decide the best moves for the good Inter.
“We know that sometimes in football you need to make a change, like we had to with [Walter] Mazzarri.
“I had no problems with him, he worked hard and gave his best for the team, but things were stagnating as the fans were starting to pile pressure on him.
“Things were no longer going well.
“We hired Mancini because we think he can do very well as he’s shown in his first few games. He’s someone who knows Inter and Italian football, but has also coached abroad and therefore has a universal, expert view.
“That’s why we chose him.”
The President also discussed the Beneamata’s transfer campaign, which has seen Lukas Podolski and Xherdan Shaqiri arrive at San Siro.
“We want to get the best players at Inter.
“We knew we didn’t have many wingers, so we bought Podolksi, a world champion with experience at Bayern Munich and Arsenal.
“At the same time, we’re a young team with an average age of around 26 and we’ve been working towards that.
“We need great young players like [Mateo] Kovacic, [Mauro] Icardi and now Shaqiri. Those players represent our future.
“Inter are a great club, just like Liverpool so it’s no surprise he chose us [over them]. We have a great history, three Champions League wins and have never been relegated to Serie B.
“More signings? We have some time between now and February 2, there’s still time, and anyway we’ve already concluded some things well in advance [of the deadline].
“It’s different from last year, when we got Hernanes and [Danilo] D’Ambrosio in the last few days.
“Anyway, on one hand there are limitations imposed by Financial Fair Play, and on the other there are the rules that will limit teams to 25 players in the squad, and we have 28 at the moment, we have to be prepared.
“We’ll look around to see if there are other opportunities, but I’m not going to go into details.
“It’s a matter of opportunity, and we’ll do everything to be ready and maybe find players who can complete the squad.”