From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
Inter get their man
The chase for Mile Svilar ended with $46.2M changing hands and AS Roma out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Inter did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mile Svilar arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mile Svilar has, at Inter, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Inter
Alessandro Bastoni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Looking ahead24 Aug 2026
All roads lead to Juventus
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Inter will be judged on one thing only.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 101185. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Shots: 9, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Tiziano Peretti chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Fee done, terms next for Mile Svilar
Inter and AS Roma have settled on $46.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Inter asked and Tottenham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $52.6M — a club that wants Mile Svilar enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Inter
Alessandro Bastoni and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Inter would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market17 Aug 2026
Talks stall between Inter and Alan
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Inter would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Inter asked and Veracruz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
Inter say no — this time
The offer from Real Madrid for Marcus Thuram was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$8.8M was the most the club would pay and Como were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcus Thuram commits to Inter for another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Lautaro Martínez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Inter can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad10 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Inter are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Veracruz have kept their man, and Inter go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Marcus Thuram again, and this time the name on the line is Real Madrid. Inter are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Inter heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Alan gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alan has just signed for Inter, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” John Stones commits to Inter for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Inter
John Stones and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“95 caps. I have loved every one, and it is somebody else’s turn.” At 37 he has stepped away from his country and is going nowhere at Inter.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Ivan Provedel's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
In brief
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The dugout
Marcus Thuram knocks on the manager’s door
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The terraces
The Marcus Thuram rumours reach the terraces
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The terraces
The spotlight tightens on Alan