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Reigning Serie A champions Inter Milan returned to second place in the table after a 1-0 win at mid-table AS Roma, who missed the chance to score in 25 straight league matches at the Stadio Olimpico.
Inter dominated possession early on and registered the first shot on target of the game as Lautaro Martinez laid the ball off for Marcus Thuram, whose strike stung the palms of Mile Svilar. At the other end, Yann Sommer was breathing a sigh of relief after spilling a Lorenzo Pellegrini shot from the byline onto his left-hand post, before Simone Inzaghi was forced into a substitution as Hakan Calhanoglu was withdrawn due to a muscle problem and replaced by Davide Frattesi.
The change, however, did not slow the pace of the game down as Henrikh Mkhitaryan crashed a volley against Svilar’s crossbar. Things then went from bad to worse on the injury front for the visitors as Stefan de Vrij replaced Francesco Acerbi, seemingly struggling with a hamstring issue, on 27 minutes. As the first period drew to a close, Sommer palmed away Pellegrini’s fierce drive, and both Inzaghi and opposite number Ivan Jurić will have felt at half-time that the three points were there for the taking.
However, the Giallorossi struggled to create enough threatening opportunities, and when they did, they were often wasteful or lacking in awareness in the final third. Inter, meanwhile, appeared more threatening and eventually broke the deadlock on the hour. Nicola Zalewski was caught dawdling, and despite Frattesi seemingly wasting the counter-attack with a wayward pass after dispossessing the Pole, Zeki Celik took a heavy touch that was punished by Lautaro, who thumped the ball home superbly from just inside the box.
Celik somewhat redeemed himself soon afterwards when sliding to prevent Federico Dimarco from making it 2-0, but after striker Artem Dovbyk nodded wide when he should have probably hit the target, Roma didn't look like troubling Sommer and could have lost by more as Svilar did brilliantly to deny Denzel Dumfries and Thuram.
It is now just one win in 16 meetings for Roma (D6, L9), who must now dust themselves off ahead of Thursday’s UEFA Europa League encounter against Dynamo Kyiv. Inter, on the other hand, play in Europe a day earlier, as they travel to Young Boys in the UEFA Champions League.
