Although Antonio Conte’s teams are usually built on a strong defensive unit, the Inter backline is yet to meet the usual high standards of the former Juventus and Chelsea manager. Stefan De Vrij has been the natural leader of the back-three, with the young and impressive Alessandro Bastoni by his side, but Milan Škriniar has somewhat lost the confidence of his coach, and the other options haven’t fared any better, and thus Inter will be looking to add a new defender this summer.
According to Tuttosport, the Nerazzurri hierarchy are planning on signing a low cost option, by pulling off one of Guiseppe Marotta’s signature free-agent signings. The report suggests that the expiring contracts of Andrea Ranocchia and Aleksandar Kolarov won’t be renewed, while Škriniar’s future is anything but certain.
The Turin-based newspaper named five players with expiring contracts, and believes that at least one of them could be an Inter defender by next season.
The names mentioned by the report are Napoli’s Nikola Maksimović, Arsenal’s Shkodran Mustafi, Newcastle’s Fabian Schär, Aïssa Mandi from Real Betis, and finally Bayern Munich’s Jerome Boateng.
Our View
Although non of the five names mentioned above is a particularly bad option, but one must feel that Inter need to buy a defender of a higher caliber, at least if Antonio Conte is hoping to build a reminiscent backline to his infamous BBC trio at Juventus, even if it means to splash some cash on the operation.
However, if one of the five free-agents mentioned above arrives as an additional option at the back then it could be a beneficial deal for the Beneamata.
Maksimović could be the most suitable option among the five, as his experiences at Torino and Napoli rendered him a Serie A veteran, but a former world champion and a stalwart defender like Boateng would always be a tempting prospect, even at the age of 32.