Inter Milan boss may have lit a fire on his future

Ivan Perisic was led astray by Arsenal and his boss may not have done the right thing in announcing the Croatian’s want to move away from the Giuseppe Meazza.

Those were part of Inter Milan manager Luciano Spalletti’s comments to RAI television following a 1-1 (4-3 pens.) defeat to Lazio Thursday in the Coppa Italia quarterfinals.

“Now the market has been closed, he needs to rediscover the obligations a footballer had,” Spalletti said of Perisic.

Spalletti went so far as to suggest Perisic was not given the full story regarding an offer made by Arsenal to bring the winger on in January.

“As for Perisic, there was this story on the market, but he is a professional, understands his role and yesterday it was already a very different mood. These things happen in the transfer window, the player received an impressive proposal and was tempted,” Spalletti said, as reported by the Daily Star. “However, he then realized it was not a true offer and that he’d been conned, and took a step back. Now he’ll resume training and as soon as his mind is back fully on Inter, we’ll let him play.”

It was reported that Arsenal offered a €4 million loan deal with the option to make the loan permanent for between €35-40 million at the end of the season. Inter rejected the deal because it was neither an outright purchase nor an obligation to purchase.

Photo by Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images

In addition to his comments about Perisic, Spalletti seemingly took a shot at new Inter CEO Beppe Marotta regarding his announcement before a 1-0 loss to Torino that Perisic handed in a request to be transferred.

”I don’t know if it was the right thing to talk about these offers that he had, but this is how the transfer market works and the player said he was interested,” Spalletti said. “In the end, nothing happened, but the fact that there was so much said about it created all of this. Now he’ll get back to training and as soon as he gets everything sorted out in his head, he will play again.”

It seems a little bold for Spalletti to call out his boss in that manner, especially coming off a loss to Lazio that could effectively deny Inter of any hardware for the seventh straight season.

Now, the only hope of a trophy would come in the form of the Europa League title, which the Nerazzurri will open competition for on Feb. 14 in Vienna, Austria against Rapid Vienna.

Inter has struggled since the start of the new year, winning just one match in four and providing lackluster play on offense despite coupling striker Mauro Icardi with Lautaro Martinez in a new formation.

The comments come at a time when Spalletti’s future with the club has come into question. Tuttosport suggested Spalletti could be on the way out as Marotta has, reportedly talked to former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte. Although, reports of a meeting between Marotta and Conte have been rebuffed by Marotta.

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