Inter returned to Pinetina last week and began training for the coming season under new boss Jose Mourinho. Journalists and supporters alike were given a glimpse of the new Nerazzurri. The atmosphere was jovial. Mourinho slouched next to President Massimo Moratti in the dugout. Moratti joked about being late for training. Mourinho laughed. Meanwhile, Adriano played keepy uppy with a pinecone.

One could be forgiven for thinking Inter were resting on their laurels. Their transfer campaign pales in comparison with those waged by Juventus, Fiorentina and Milan. One swallow, namely Amantino Mancini, doesn’t make much of a summer. But do Inter really need to involve themselves in an arms race? The simple answer is no. They, lest we forget, are Italian football’s Jones’. Everybody is trying to keep up with them.

So, while Frank Lampard and Ricardo Quaresma would be nice, Inter’s answer to Ronaldinho is a certain Mr Mourinho. You see one of the great paradoxes in Inter’s recent history has been the perceived ineptitude of Mourinho’s predecessor Roberto Mancini, the man who ended the Nerazzurri’s 17-year title drought and winner of three consecutive Scudetti. The second most successful man to sit on Inter’s bench was always seen as second best.

A tactical dilettante, whose naivety was sometimes hidden by the sheer array of get-out-of-jail talent at his disposal, Mancini lost many a psychological battle with Luciano Spalletti and appeared unable to line-up his charges in anything other than variations of 4-4-2. Mourinho, by contrast, has unveiled the system he intends to deploy as if it were one of Inter’s new summer signings. “4-3-3 is the formation I like most. It’s not a 4-5-1 or a 4-2-3-1. It’s a pure 4-3-3. The challenge consists of defending ourselves with three midfielders and freeing our strikers to attack.”

Mourinho has already started working at compacting the midfield. On Thursday he devised two six-a-side matches adjacent to each other. Mourinho stood in the corridor between the two matches with a whistle in hand. Each team played 3-2-1 and each player was given a number corresponding to his position. At random intervals, Mourinho would blow his whistle and call out a player’s number. The player then had to swap places with someone occupying his position on the adjacent pitch.

The exercise is designed to improve concentration and speed. Such organisation and discipline have been the only things missing at Inter in recent years. And that’s why I believe Mourinho’s arrival at a cost of £7m a season has been the best bit of business this summer.

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