Gasperini sacked after just five games

Inter Milan have sacked Gian Piero Gasperini after just five winless games.

The former Genoa manager was a surprise selection to replace Leonardo, and despite such a short period at the club, I feel Massimo Moratti was right to sack Gasperini.

Inter Milan slumped to a poor 3-1 defeat away to newly promoted Novara last night and quite frankly they were appalling. Their inability to retain the ball against a Novara side, who despite defending well, weren't great at keeping the ball themselves, was the worst I've ever seen from an Inter side bereft of ideas and attacking fluidity.

One failure doesn't result in Gasperini becoming a poor manager, however the timing for him to join the club just wasn't right. With an ageing squad and the severe decline in form of some of their key squad from the 2010 treble winning side, Gasperini was never going to succeed.

The defensive unit that so brilliantly thwarted Pep Guardiola's Barcelona just fifteen months ago has deteriated. Lucio, Christian Chivu and Javier Zanetti all performed admirably that night in the Nou Camp, however fast forward to last night, defensively Inter Milan were awful. Novara had three, they could've had five. Takayuki Morimoto was man of the match for Novara and gave Andrea Ranocchia a torrid time, resulting in the later being sent off and conceding a penalty for the vital second goal.

Its not just defensively however that Inter have been poor, their forwards have been in serious decline. Diego Milito was one that received praise for their treble season, with the striker scoring 22 league goals as well as two in the Champions League final. However the Argentine's form has been bad for a while now. The striker followed his 22 league effort with just five goals in Serie A last season and despite two on the opening day this season, the former Genoa forward hasn't scored since and really looked out of touch last night. The loss of Samuel Eto'o is huge, the striker scored 53 goals in two seasons with the Nerazzurri and the burden of replacing the Cameroon strikers goals falls heavily on Diego Forlan, who like Milito, has been poor since a great 2010 season and Pazzani, who despite a good back end of the 2011 season, will struggle to find the net as regularly as Eto'o.

Despite a couple of good seasons with Genoa Gasperini hasn't got a CV that fills a chairman with confidence, and the move was seen as a similar one to AC Milan's decision to appoint Masimmo Allegri, which worked well for the later in their successful 2010-11 Serie A campaign. Allegri, like Gasperini had minimal experience in the top flight of Italy, however after Gasperini's ultimately awful spell at Inter, its fair to say the similarities end there.