Scottish football is set to welcome yet another Japanese goalkeeper

Scottish football is set to welcome yet another Japanese goalkeeper to the fore. Dundee United have just announced the signing of Japanese international Eiji Kawashima.

The prospect of goalkeeper representing the Scottish club will be determined by Visa clearances. Even though he has not signed a long-term contract with Dundee, this is undoubtedly great news for Scottish and Japanese football. The profile of the Scottish football has been reduced in recent years due to the absence of Rangers. There has been an undeniable decline in the quality of the game.

Even Dundee United have been struggling a lot for form this season. This has forced the club into making significant additions to the squad. Mixu Paatelainen has now brought in four players in total. He will be hoping that they will have a major say in the club’s attempts to move away from the drop zone. The club’s last win was back in October when they managed a narrow 1-0 win over Ross County. Since then, they have taken only a couple of points – through some draws – and this poor form sees them placed at the bottom of the table. They are already 10 points away from getting from the foot of the table.

Eiji has immense experience of playing international football after representing his country in 72 games. “Finally I’m able to join to Dundee United. I’m delighted to join this club. I will try to do all my best with my fighting spirit and my ambition as a player. I hope that can bring something different to the squad and also I hope I can use my experience as well. I’m looking forward to wearing the Dundee United jersey on the pitch soon,” said Eiji. Michal Szromnik has been the number one choice for Dundee United this season.

Javier Zanettiis working hard to make Inter Milan a top 4 club

Javier Zanetti truly is a club legend as he spent over 17 years playing for Inter Milan and made 615 appearances for the Italian club and after deciding to hang up his playing boots, he decided to continue helping out Inter Milan as the Argentinean became club director on April of 2014 and things continued flourishing for Zanetti in the club as he was appointed with the vice presidential role.

The duties of Zanetti have gone from being a captain and leader inside of the pitch to now taking charge of the internal responsibilities of Inter Milan. He might not have a lot of time on the spotlight as he used to a few years ago but Zanetti does talk to reporters and appear in press conferences whenever it may be needed.

Zanetti’s latest appearance in the media occurred not too long ago as he revealed details concerning some of the summer targets of Inter Milan and also said what the club needs to do in order to become competitive and snatch a top 4 spot in the Italian League, Serie A.

During the last season of Inter Milan, they finished at the 8th spot as they failed on sealing a Champions League and Europa League qualification position. Zanetti wants to see Inter Milan land higher spots and turn into title challengers

Inter Milan’s Javier Zanetti told reporters: “We are working hard to return to being title challengers and we are doing everything to ensure we can be competitive, starting from next season. However, it’s not been easy for Italian football right at the moment. We need to pay attention to a lot of things, but our objective is to build a squad as soon as possible that can reach the top again”.

One of the things that Javier Zanetti has revealed that the Italian club will do in order to become competitive is by signing new players into the team and some of the summer targets of Inter Milan are: Mehdi Benatia, YayaToure, John Obi Mikel and Alex Song just to name a few of the possible signings during the summer transfer window.

Despite having suffered successive loses, Mancini says that Inter Milan is improving

Inter Milan was knocked out from the International Champions Cup after having suffered consecutive defeats when facing off with Ac.Milan and Real Madrid.

The team of Roberto Mancini failed to score a single goal in any of these matches as they struggled to find the back of the net in both of those games but Roberto Mancini believes that his team has been improving in spite of their recent losing streak.

This string of defeats initiated back on July 21st when Inter Milan lost their friendly match against Bayern Munich and from there on out the Italian side has kept on sustaining loses in successive form.

Roberto Mancini still seems to be happy about the growth and progression that his team has been displaying in the pitch as the Italian manager said: “I’d say we’re doing well, aside from the defeats which don’t make me happy’’
“There have been so many changes; we have to find the right mechanisms and conditions. We’ll train properly over the next 20 days, because these tours are stimulating, but prevent you from working as you’d like. Between the match against Real and the one against Bayern the team has improved a lot in terms of play and personality’’

Inter Milan has had a fairly active summer transfer window as they have signed Joao Miranda, Jeison Murillo, Martin Montoya, Stefan Jovetic and Geoffrey Kondogbia. Besides these players, Mancini has added a few more players to his team but those mentioned previously are the high profile ones who are expected to make a big impact in the team and help the Italian club out in their upcoming challenges.

The transfer budget that was given to Roberto Mancini was in the region of €70 million as the Indonesian businessman and owner of Inter Milan, Erick Thohir wants to see his club start winning major titles as Thohir said: “We must qualify for the Champions League next season because this is the reason why we brought in Mancini in November and some top players in our squad extended their contracts this summer“

Roberto Mancini now has to find a way to take Inter Milan out of their recent slump of negative results and push the team into the top spots of Serie A which they struggled to do in the 2014-15 season as they finished in the 8th spot and failed to qualify in either the Champions League but Erick Thohir is hoping that the next season will be different and now the pressure is on Roberto Mancini to make it happen.

Inter Milan will not be involved in the Europa League

Inter Milan will not be involved in the Europa League next season, unless there are some extraordinary circumstances in the summer, that manager Roberto Mancini says that he is pleased with the displays from his team towards the end of the campaign.

The former Manchester City boss was expected to provide a huge lift to the club when he replaced Walter Mazzarri. This left never came and the club finished the campaign in eighth place behind the likes of Genoa and Sampdoria. A thrilling 4-3 win over Empoli on the final day of the season was not enough since Sampdoria finished with a one-point advantage.

Despite the lack of European football next season, Mancini says that he can already look forward to the new season. He has seen several positives including the performances of Mauro Icardi. The striker is seen as one of the hottest in properties in world football and he proved this by scoring a double against Empoli. Mancini reckons that one key reasons behind his happiness is that Inter Milan appear to be playing more as a unit rather than just as a collection of highly talented individuals. The club are once again expected to spend heavily in the summer transfer window, as they hope to reach the heights of 2010.

“It didn’t matter much, but at least we were able to play a game which was entertaining for people.We’re working. The results, unfortunately, were negative but at least the team has become a team. We can definitely work in pre-season and improve a lot. Toni and Icardi have scored the same goals. Luca is 38 but he has the enthusiasm of a kid and you can’t score all those goals without that. Icardi was as good as him,” said Mancini. Icardi finished the campaign with 22 goals.

Yaya Toure has entered the radar of Inter Milan

The 31 year old midfielder of Manchester City, Yaya Toure has entered the radar of Inter Milan as the Italian side is believed to be preparing a 5 year long deal where the experienced player will be around £54million during his time in the Italian club if he does decide to make a switch over to the Serie A.

Yaya Toure is one of the best paid players in the entire world as is currently earning £220,000 each week at the Etihad Stadium and Inter Milan will have to tempt the player with a very good offer so that he can even start considering on leaving the Premier League and with the deal in the region of £54million, the team of Roberto Mancini is hoping that it will be good enough.

The head coach of Inter Milan, Roberto Mancini is not concerned about the fact that Yaya Toure will be 32 years old in May as the Italian manager believes that Yaya Toure is going to continue performing at a high level despite his elevated age.

After having made over 600 appearances and spent over 17 years performing for Inter Milan, Javier Zanetti went on to become the vice-president of the Italian club and he has stated that the club is indeed attempting to sign Yaya Toure.

‘’Toure is a world-class player. We are talking about a great champion who Mancini knows well. We must respect certain parameters, but we will do everything possible to make him happy within those parameters’’ Inter Milan’s Vice-President, Javier Zanetti said.

Manchester City is out of the Champions League after being knocked out by Barcelona and their chances on winning the Premier League title in this season are beginning to dissipate after having lost against Crystal Palace. Their chances on winning a major titles in this campaign are not very high and a change in the squad might occur at the end of the season.

Manuel Pellegrini has a number of younger players in his wish-list but in order to sign them, some older and veteran players might have to leave including: Edin Dzeko, Pablo Zabaleta and Yaya Toure. All of those players have been recently rumored with an exit from the Premier League.

Mauro Icardi may move to any Big Club this Transfer

Inter Milan’s Mauro Icardi is a 22 year old Argentine forward who has been linked with a move to different clubs around Europe but mostly to the Premier League as Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are believed to be interested in signing the young player but unfortunately for the English clubs, it doesn’t seem like Icardi has any interest in moving away from Inter Milan anytime soon.

“If the rumors about United, Chelsea and Liverpool were real, I would be honored, because they are big clubs but I’m already in a great team where I can win something important. I’m not interested in rumors, what counts is winning with Inter,I think I will stay until the end of the contract.’’ Mauro Icardi said as he revealed his interest in remaining in Italy with Inter Milan.

So far, Mauro Icardi has made 23 appearances for Inter Milan in this season and the Argentine has managed to score 14 goals, making him the top goal-scorer of Inter Milan at this point in the campaign.

It doesn’t really come as a surprise to see as to why Manchester United’s Louis van Gaal is interested in signing Mauro Icardi as United has struggled trying to score goals when it really matters, even though they have a crew of highly rated attackers including: Robin van Persie, Angel Di Maria, Wayne Rooney and RadamelFalcao.

Mauro Icardi’s current contract with Inter Milan expires in 3 years and the Italian club is attempting to negotiate with the player in order to extend it further but Icardi is not thinking about that now. The Argentine attacker could be waiting to see how Inter Milan develops in the next few years before deciding to renew his contract as Icardi did say that he would like to play in the Champions League and Icardi could be waiting to see if Inter Milan manages to get into the top European tournament.

Roberto Mancini second spell not successful

Roberto Mancini took charge of Inter Milan just before December for a second spell, but he has not been greeted with an immediate upturn in results. Inter continue to struggle in the Italian Serie A and are already several points behind the top three.

It has been suggested that the club will spend heavily in January in order to get back into European football, but Mancini has ruled out such a probability since he fears that the UEFA’s FFP regulations may limit the club’s impact in the January transfer window. Inter have been saddled with huge debts in the last few years.

Due to the lower income for clubs Italian Serie A, they may not be able to compete with the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea when it comes to the market for big players according to Mancini. This is unlikely to prevent him from shuffling his squad.

Inter are expected to allow some big names leave the club in order to reduce the wage bill and generate some transfer funds. Mancini recently made several changes to the team at half-time and helped them get a 2-2 draw against Lazio. Some of the names linked with Inter are Chelsea winger Mohamed Salah and Lukas Podolski of Arsenal.

“It [FFP] does represent a big problem. So we must do well in scouting to get ahead of big clubs who can afford top transfer fees.Inter have doing this for years and I think we need the courage to invest on strong young players, such as Mateo Kovacic.I hope it won’t happen but we might have to sacrifice some big players to reach other targets.Inter need better players in certain areas of the team where we are lacking something,” said Mancini. Inter have managed only one win in the last five league matches.

Inter Milan may drop Nemanja Vidic

The Serbian defender of Inter Milan, NemanjaVidic at one point of his career was considered to be one of the best defenders in the world and this was during his time performing for Manchester United a few years ago but things have taken a huge turn ever since he completed his move to Inter Milan.

NemanjaVidic is constantly being selected as one of the reasons on why Inter Milan has dropped so many points in this season in Serie A as the club is located in the middle section of the Italian League.

After having such a disastrous start in his career in Inter Milan, rumors started emerging claiming that the Italian club was going to try to sell Vidic in the January transfer window and there could be a real possibility of the Serbian defender making a return to Manchester United but those rumors have been shut down by the agent of Vidic.

Silvano Martina is the agent of NemanjaVidic and Martina feels that Vidic just needs time to fully get adjusted into Inter Milan and the Serbian doesn’t deserve to be getting all of the criticism that he has recently been getting.

“He doesn’t deserve to be talked about all the time, whenever something goes wrong they blame him. Maybe it’s because he’s the team’s best defender, time will tell if it was a good deal for Inter. The criticism is badly targeted, he’s a great player, and the best centre-back in the Italian League’’

“Inter are suffering, so he is suffering.” “He was given a lot of responsibility, and his introduction to Italian football has been difficult with the red card at Torino.”Silvano Martina said.

Manchester United is in search for a number of players in order to strengthen the squad of Louis van Gaal but it seems extremely hard to believe that they would be even taking into consideration on re-signing a player that is reaching the last few years of his career and that is already starting to show cracks which is the case of NemanjaVidic and Inter Milan is expected to give the Serbian defender a few more months for him to prove himself before officially deciding to sell him put him on the bench.

Inter Milan Reject suggestions of panic

Inter Milan have rejected suggestions of panic at the club after a string of poor results has once again threatened to end the season without making any objective. Inter set the target of returning to the Champions League at the start of the season. Things looked extremely positive after they managed to bring in a couple of experienced names like Nemanja Vidic. This bolstered the squad significantly, but results are yet to show the same. After six matches this season, Inter are only 10th in the table with only two victories.
The back-to-back heavy defeats against Cagliari and Fiorentina just weeks before the international break have threatened to disrupt the season. Furthermore, Inter will be going straight against Walter Mazzarri’s former club Napoli after this break. Napoli are going through a crisis themselves with questions asked about manager Rafa Benitez, but they are overshadowed by the problems at Inter. The club’s chief Piero Ausilio says that the club are relaxed about the situation because they know that results will eventually come good. He has tried to dismiss the two defeats against Cagliari and Fiorentina as freak results.
Ausilio says that such results were not avoided even during the highly successful regimes of Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini. “A week of trouble hasn’t scared us. Cagliari was a hiccup – one of those games which happen once a year. It also happened during the tenures of [Roberto] Mancini and [Jose] Mourinho. In Florence, the team did not disintegrate, but they were duly punished every time they tried to make something of the game. We’ve analysed these problems without any shame or fear and concluded that there is still work to be done from a physical point of view. I am convinced that, even against Napoli, you will see another Inter,” said Ausilio.

Inter Milan Reject suggestions of panic

Inter Milan have rejected suggestions of panic at the club after a string of poor results has once again threatened to end the season without making any objective. Inter set the target of returning to the Champions League at the start of the season. Things looked extremely positive after they managed to bring in a couple of experienced names like Nemanja Vidic. This bolstered the squad significantly, but results are yet to show the same. After six matches this season, Inter are only 10th in the table with only two victories.
The back-to-back heavy defeats against Cagliari and Fiorentina just weeks before the international break have threatened to disrupt the season. Furthermore, Inter will be going straight against Walter Mazzarri’s former club Napoli after this break. Napoli are going through a crisis themselves with questions asked about manager Rafa Benitez, but they are overshadowed by the problems at Inter. The club’s chief Piero Ausilio says that the club are relaxed about the situation because they know that results will eventually come good. He has tried to dismiss the two defeats against Cagliari and Fiorentina as freak results.
Ausilio says that such results were not avoided even during the highly successful regimes of Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini. “A week of trouble hasn’t scared us. Cagliari was a hiccup – one of those games which happen once a year. It also happened during the tenures of [Roberto] Mancini and [Jose] Mourinho. In Florence, the team did not disintegrate, but they were duly punished every time they tried to make something of the game. We’ve analysed these problems without any shame or fear and concluded that there is still work to be done from a physical point of view. I am convinced that, even against Napoli, you will see another Inter,” said Ausilio.