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MILAN: Inter Milan can manage without Dutch playmaker Wesley Sneijder if he decides to leave the club, new coach Gian Piero Gasperini said as he was officially presented on Tuesday.
Gasperini played down his lack of experience in coaching big clubs and rejected the idea that he would be in the shadows of Jose Mourinho, who won a Serie A, Italian Cup and Champions League treble the season before last.
“There's no doubt that Sneijder's a great player, but it's hard to know what's going to happen over the next 50 days,” Gasperini told reporters.
“Inter want to become a better team, and two years ago the departure of (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic left the team even stronger than it was before,” he said referring to the Swede who has since played for Barcelona and AC Milan.
“I'm not worried about the situation surrounding Wesley. In the last few years, Inter have made fewer bad moves on the market than anybody else and have made the best decisions.
“So I have every reason to feel confident.”
He added: “This team is full of great players capable of performing in different positions, and that includes Sneijder.
“What we must show right from the beginning is a strong mentality and a desire to achieve new targets.”
Gasperini became Inter's fourth coach in little more than a year after Mourinho departed last summer and Rafa Benitez and Leonardo failed to last more than a few months each last season.
Inter were last season denied a sixth successive scudetto by AC Milan and were humiliatingly dumped out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals by Schalke 04 after a 5-2 home defeat in the first leg.
The 53-year-old has previously coached unglamorous Crotone and Genoa and will be taking charge of a big club for the first time, although he has coached the youth team at Juventus.
“Something can be learnt from each of them, though we know that everyone has their own methods and their own way of building up a rapport with the players,” he said of his predecessors.
“There have been generations of important Inter coaches and players. I will become a part of that starting from now and I must concentrate on the immediate future.
“I have always thought highly of Mourinho but now we should only to look to the past for inspiration, because we all know that what matters here is winning; that is the determining factor. We have to be positive and produce good football on the pitch.”
