Milan: Jose Mourinho has advised Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti against hiring Andre Villas-Boas as coach in the summer, with Andrea Stramaccioni now in with a chance of keeping the top job beyond the end of the season, Goal.com understands.
The Nerazzurri have appointed Stramaccioni as interim boss until the end of the current campaign, but Villas-Boas, sacked by Chelsea at the start of the month, is still being heavily linked with the under performing Serie A outfit. Indeed, Moratti made an approach to the Portuguese before he left Porto for Stamford Bridge last June and had, up until recently, considered the 34-year-old the leading candidate to drag the club out of their current malaise.
However, the Inter supremo's interest in Villas-Boas has now cooled - for two reasons.
Firstly, Real Madrid coach Mourinho, who remains a close confidante of Moratti's following his trophy-laden two-year spell at Appiano Gentile, has warned the oil tycoon against appointing his former protege.
Villas-Boas served under Mourinho at both Porto and Inter but the pair's relationship broke down after the former left the Nerazzurri in 2009 to take charge of Academica. However, it is not yet known exactly why Mourinho does not believe Villas-Boas is the man to revive the ailing Nerazzurri.
"Moratti calls Mourinho regularly to discuss everything about Inter with him, and he has been warned off Villas-Boas by his former coach," a source at Inter has explained to Goal.com. "Mourinho believes AVB is not the right man for Inter."
On top of the Mourinho warning, Moratti is concerned by the way in which Villas-Boas' stint with Chelsea came to an end, with the English club's senior players allegedly having played a key role in his dismissal.
As revealed earlier this month by Goal.com, the Inter chief met with representatives of Villas-Boas after he left Chelsea, but the president now has his doubts over whether the Portuguese would be able to control a dressing room populated by seasoned campaigners who played a prominent role in the treble success of 2010. As a result, Moratti has been moved to contact Chelsea to determine the veracity of reports that he was forced out by 'player power'.
"Inter have contacted someone in the Chelsea staff because they are worried how AVB might manage the players, especially the ones with experience," added our source. "They want to be clear that he is not going to have problems with senior players such as Javier Zanetti and Diego Milito."
With all of this in mind, Moratti is now very much open to the idea of retaining the services of Stramaccioni on a permanent basis should the 36-year-old, who impressed by leading Inter Primavera to victory in the inaugural NextGen tournament, bring about an upturn in the club’s fortunes for the remaining nine Serie A matches this season.
With Villas-Boas' agent having stated earlier this week that his client has no intention of even thinking about football until the summer, let alone pondering his next move, an under-pressure Moratti is now set to adopt a wait-and-see approach in relation to a decision that he simply has to get right to appease Nerazzurri fans.
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