Inter Milan made it 4 wins in a row in the Serie A as they beat city rivals AC Milan 3-0 at the San Siro in the Derby della Madonnina.
It was a fantastic match between the top 2 sides in Italy that saw end-to-end attacking football. The Milan sides combined for a total of 30 shots in the game with AC having 14 and Inter with 16. Out of these, it was the Rossoneri that had more shots on target with 8 but failed to find a way past Slovenian goalkeeper Samir Handanovic.
On the other hand, Internazionale was lethal in front of goal. Of their 6 shots on target, they managed to find the back of the net on 3 occasions and deserved to win the game. Although AC had the bulk of possession (60%), Inter’s pace on the counter was too much to handle for the Red and Blacks.
It took Inter just 5 minutes to open the scoring with Lautaro Martinez pouncing on a terrific cross by Romelu Lukaku between AC Milan’s defenders to head home to give Antonio Conte’s side the lead.
Antonio Conte and Romelu Lukaku of Inter Milan.
(Photo by Andrea Staccioli/Insidefoto/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Lukaku was immense in the derby and was definitely the man of the match. Chances kept falling to Inter who were resolute in defence and quick to break in transition. A dangerous cross into the six-yard box by Ivan Perisic nearly found its way to Lukaku who failed to make contact with the ball.
Gianluigi Donnarumma was kept busy as Perisic drilled a low shot in the 37th minute that required the Italian keeper to parry it away with a strong hand. The Nerazzurri came close again to doubling their lead just before half time as a Christian Eriksen free kick picked out Skriniar perfectly but he just headed over.
AC Milan came out of the half time break with much more intent and looked threatening to score very early on as Handanovic was forced to make a terrific double save to keep the scores level as a Zlatan Ibrahimovic flick required a reflex save from the Slovenian and he had to follow it up with another save from Ibrahimovic’s head.
Just a minute after, Hakan Calhanoglu had an effort blocked, which fell kindly to Sandro Tonali whose drilled shot was saved by Handanovic once again as the Rossoneri kept pushing for the equaliser.
Less than 10 minutes later, however, Inter doubled its lead as Martinez bagged his second through a quick counterattack that AC could not deal with. Perisic played a comfortable pass back to the Argentinian who made no mistake to score past a helpless Donnarumma to make it 2-0.
Zlatan Imbrahimovic looking dejected. (Photo by Andrea Staccioli/Insidefoto/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Inter made it 3 soon after in the 66th minute to make sure of the win as Inter broke on the counter once again as Lukaku dashed a long way on his own and could not be caught up with by Italian defender Alessio Romagnoli. The Belgian forward curled the ball around Donnarumma from the edge of the box to finish the game off.
A tactical masterpiece from Antonio Conte took Inter 4 points clear at the top of the Serie A in what was a so-called “six-pointer” between the sides from the San Siro. AC Milan on the other hand, has now lost 2 consecutive league games and have only managed 6 points in their last 5 games, leading to them dropping from the top of the table to 2nd.
