Inter Coach Roberto Mancini insists there’s no issue with Erick Thohir – “I hear from him every week”.
The Nerazzurri President has been criticised for not being in Italy enough, as he also spends time in his native Indonesia and the United States, where he owns DC United and basketball team the Philadelphia 76ers.
“I have a good relationship with the club,” Mancini assured Premium Sport.
“In England [at Manchester City] I never saw the President, so by that logic English teams should never win.
Inter Coach Roberto Mancini insists there’s no issue with Erick Thohir – “I hear from him every week”.
The Nerazzurri President has been criticised for not being in Italy enough, as he also spends time in his native Indonesia and the United States, where he owns DC United and basketball team the Philadelphia 76ers.
“I have a good relationship with the club,” Mancini assured Premium Sport.
“In England [at Manchester City] I never saw the President, so by that logic English teams should never win.
“I hear from Thohir every week, and representatives of the club are always here.”
Mancini then analysed the Beneamata’s season, and defended himself from allegations that he changes the team too much.
“I made a lot of changes at the beginning because things were going well, everyone was in good form. In recent months I’ve almost always used the same team.
“I have to take responsibility, because I’m the Coach. With the way we started we could have been between Napoli and Roma fighting for second place, we could have achieved the impossible.
“Then we had that decline in January. We’ve made errors of naivety, but that’s normal when you’re rebuilding.
“You just need patience, a quality that’s lacking in Italy. For me that’s the reason our football is in crisis.
“The decline of Italian football? Inter is the team with the biggest attendance, that’s an important stat. In Spain they have the two best teams in the world [Barcelona and Real Madrid] and in recent years Atletico Madrid have come in there.
“Italian football has to wait, Inter won the last Italian Champions League in 2010, Juventus got to the final last year.
“We lost the four places to get into the Champions League, and then we maybe snubbed the Europa League.
“I think we’re on track. When a cycle finishes it can take time, and there can be some mistakes too.”
The former striker briefly played for Leicester City at the end of his playing career, and was asked about the Foxes’ charge toward the Premier League title.
“First of all I’m very happy for the club,” Mancini said.
“[Claudio] Ranieri is a good person who deserves this fairytale. Sometimes these things can happen in England, because everyone plays the same way in the Premier League.
“I had five matches in all, and then when I was settling in Fiorentina called me and I started Coaching.
“By the way, the first game I played in was Chelsea-Leicester and Ranieri was on the bench for the Blues.”
Finally, Mancini was asked about Atletico Madrid Coach Diego Simeone, who has admitted he’d like to take over at Inter one day.
“I think that’s only right, he was an Inter player and if he’s thinking about coming back it would be beautiful. We can’t both be Coach though!
“I don’t know who will succeed me and it’s not something I worry about. If Cholo has said he wants to come here that means Inter is a great club.”