Ivan Perisic Signs New Inter Milan Contract

Ivan Perisic has extended his contract with Inter Milan until 2022, further confirming his commitment to the Serie A club despite links with a move to Manchester United during the transfer window.

Croatia winger Perisic, who switched to Inter from Wolfsburg in 2015, already had a contract through to 2020.

“It’s a special day for me, an emotional and happy one after the stress of the summer. Now we are all looking forward and I’m only thinking about Inter.

“For a long time I kept my counsel, and now I can say that [head coach Luciano] Spalletti told me that I could be an even better version of myself here.

“We’ve done well in the first two matches of the season and we need to continue that way.”

“We were quite clear with him and the club did well too to find the right arguments to convince him to stay,” Spalletti told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “He was told that nobody else would be leaving and so he stopped this little stand-off with the club, which is normal when it comes to big players.

“Ivan is an impressive sportsman. He is one of those who puts the team first. He loves moving all the way up and down the touchline and he was decisive there in our game at Roma, but if he can learn to stay about five metres inside the line from time to time, then he can become devastating in the area just behind [Mauro] Icardi.”

“Of course I expected a different market — I was convinced that I could bake with certain ingredients — but I didn’t know some of my players back then either,” he said. “The quality of the lads I’ve got here is really high.

“We start off from 29 points behind Juve, 25 behind Roma and 24 behind Napoli so we need to win seven or eight more games this season [compared to last season], so we all need to improve. But I’ve got a perfect squad in my hands, and we are going to prove it. We’ve signed players who were suited to us.”