Mourinho set to replace Mancini as Inter Milan coach: reports

Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho’s long anticipated return to coaching looked set to be confirmed later on Tuesday as it was reported that Serie A champions Inter Milan were to let coach Roberto Mancini go.

Italian national press agency ANSA reported 43-year-old Mancini had held talks for 25 minutes with club president Massimo Moratti where the former Italy international striker had been told he was no longer wanted at the club, despite three successive titles.

According to the Italian media Mourinho, who has been kicking his heels in Portugal since he was sacked by Chelsea last September, would be quickly named as his replacement.

However, Mancini’s agent, Giorgio De Giorgis, said while he was pretty much certain Mancini’s hugely successful spell at a domestic level was over, he could not confirm it definitively.

“I don’t know anything,” he told ANSA.

“I have not been able to sit down and talk calmly with Roberto.

“Is it finished? It appears more or less. But I cannot confirm that.”

While Mourinho, nicknamed ‘The Special One’ for his guiding Porto to the Champions League title in 2004 and then Chelsea albeit an expensively assembled side to two Premiership titles, would not come cheap nor will the exit of Mancini, whose contract runs till 2012.

However, Mancini was unable to make Inter into viable Champions League contenders despite the three Serie A titles, one on the back of the match fixing scandal, the second because of either the heavy points deductions or demotion of their main rivals and the third was really the only one won on the back of real opposition.

De Giorgis said that it would come as a huge surprise if Mancini had been sacked.

“This if it is true will purely be a decision taken by the club as he (Mancini) was not going anywhere (he has been linked to the Chelsea manager’s job after Avram Grant was sacked at the weekend),” said De Giorgis.

“Mancini was very calm up till this morning (Tuesday). Then he read the newspapers, and when he read certain things about Mourinho arriving in his place we began to pose questions.”

Mancini, who understudied Sven-Goran Eriksson when Lazio won the title in 2000, had announced after being knocked out by Liverpool in the last 16 of the Champions League that he was going to leave at the end of the season, though, he rescinded those words the next day.

Inter have not won the former European Cup/Champions League since 1965.