Restricted role widely criticised

As Robbie Keane stopped to talk in the passageway that leads from the team dressing-rooms to the underground car park at Milan's San Siro stadium on Wednesday night, the sound of angry Inter Milan fans trying to kick in an outside door was all too audible. In the wake of Inter's elimination from the Champions League by Swedish side Helsingborg, they were not pleased.

The major focus of their anger was team coach Marcello Lippi. A number of fans waited for nearly two hours after the final whistle for the dubious pleasure of shouting colourful insults at the Inter coach as he drove away into the Milanese night.

Ironically, Keane was at the centre of the criticism levelled at Lippi, with both fans and media commentators alike arguing that Keane should have played from the start, rather than coming on as a substitute for Chilean Ivan Zamorano at the start of the second half. Yesterday morning, Milan-based sports daily, Gazzetta Dello Sport commented: "Of all Lippi's initial choices, none was more surprising than the decision to play Zamorano rather than Keane."

Milan daily, Corriere Della Sera underlined how Keane's second-half appearance had revitalised a stultified Inter attack, commenting: "Lippi's original choice of strikers, Zamorano and Sukur, left us rather perplexed . . . Above all, when Keane came on, he added an element of pace and movement to the attack, creating no small difficulty for the opposing defence."

Rome daily, La Repubblica, took up the same theme in its assessment of a defeat that is estimated to have cost Inter at least $10 million in lost television rights and Champions League revenue.

"At half-time, Lippi tried to correct his original mistakes, changing both personnel and strategy. He brought on Keane and Recoba in place of Zamorano and Pirlo, giving the impression that he had completely wasted the previous 45 minutes."

Lippi defended his selection at the post-match press conference, saying: "I didn't play Zamorano for his aerial game. I picked him for all sorts of reasons - his personality, his terrific battling qualities, his charisma. Keane is a very good player but in Italy we tend to praise the most recently arrived players, forgetting the others."

Wednesday's defeat, coming in the wake of a disappointing season, has put Lippi under greatly increased pressure, with many commentators openly speculating that he could soon join the lengthy list of ex-Inter coaches. The coach himself, understandably, refused to reply to such speculation on Wednesday, saying that such decisions were a matter for the club and its president, petrol millionaire Massimo Moratti.

And although reports yesterday quoted Lippi as saying he might step down, Inter Milan responded by confirming that he will remain on as coach.

Only once on Wednesday did Lippi betray any sense of pressure. Asked by a Swedish journalist if the result was a "disaster" for Inter, he replied: "Are you Swedish? . . . Well, just concentrate on the good things your team did and not on the negative aspect to Inter's performances. Those are our problems."

Indeed they are.