Inter place Europa League at the centre of a crumbling season

Their Croatian midfielder, Mateo Kovacic, has already stated that, on current form, they have no chance of finishing in the top three.

Despite the Milan club remaining under investigation by UEFA over potential breaches of Financial Fair Play rules, Mancini is planning a degree of much-needed surgery in the January transfer window and insists he will find a way to turn his underperforming team into a unit capable of qualifying for the Champions League.

For many observers, though, Inter's best chance of returning to European football's premier competition, which they won just four years ago under Jose Mourinho, resides in UEFA's recent attempt to jazz up the Europa League by providing its winners with a passport to the tournament that really matters.

Those within the club's powerbase are clearly beginning to think that way, too. Marco Fassone, the director general, represented Inter at yesterday's draw in Switzerland and made it clear that getting past Celtic and winning the Europa League has become a major target less for the big silver trophy presented at the end of it than the get-out-of-jail card it now offers them.

"We need to try to win this competition for the prestige and the chance to qualify for the Champions League," said Fassone.

"There are five rounds between here and the final in Warsaw. We will try to win it. It will be a tricky match against Celtic, but they were all difficult opponents.

"The Celtic tie has the feel of a Champions League tie due to the two sides' history."

Kovacic, already being linked with Real Madrid at the tender age of 20, is honest when discussing the shortcomings within the side, though, and the difficulties that Mancini faces.

"You cannot say that the coach must change everything in two or three weeks," he said. "We are not a great team and we have to know this.

"I think we have a good team, but we are not demonstrating this. At the moment, we are not a side for the top three."

Tarcisio Burgnich, a veteran of the 1967 European Cup final and Inter's victory over Celtic thanks to a penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals five years later, sees the current side's lack of a matchwinner as the overwhelming problem.

They have a number of decent attacking players including Kovacic, Rodrigo Palacio, Fredy Guarin and Mauro Icardi, but none of the superstars of old.

"Inter have good players, but they lack what makes the difference," said Burgnich. "Bayern Munich have five players who make a difference, but Inter don't.

"When Mourinho won here in Italy, he had champions such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Samuel Eto'o and Wesley Sneijder.

"There is a good team now, but they lack players of this type. I hope they can do business in the market in January with a strong midfielder necessary for Mancini."

For all that, Burgnich is content with the prospect of another meeting with Celtic.

"It 'a good draw," he said. "The Celtic of today is not the Celtic of our times. It is not a team that top players, like Bayern or Paris Saint Germain. It has good players, but nothing more. "

Mancini has put Europa League success at the top of his priorities, too, but remains convinced from his first month in the role at Inter that he can build a team capable of finishing at least third in Serie A.

"We'll do well in future," he said. "I am convinced we will fight for third place and for victory in the Europa League."

However, Zdravko Kuzmanovic, the Swiss-born Serbia midfielder, insists a developing culture of the players being booed when they play at the San Siro must end if they are to turn a dreadful season on its head.

"I understand the fans' feelings and the whistles, given things are not going well," he said. "At the moment, though, we need their support.

"When we're playing at San Siro, we must feel at home and not as if we're away."

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