(Football news) Inter suffered a second successive home defeat at the hands of Sassuolo and missed the chance to climb back to the top of Serie A table after losing 2-0. Inter fell behind just after eight minutes when Giacomo Raspadori drilled a low powerful shot through goalkeeper Samir Handanovic. Gianluca Scamacca then scored a simple header as he was left unmarked in the box to double Sassuolo's lead. Inter were all over the place as it looked like that the match against Liverpool took a lot of sting out of them.
They could have easily gone into the break 3-0 down when Domenico Berardi's shot fortunately hit the crossbar. After the break, Inter restored some parity as the Sassuolo goalkeeper Andrea Consigli made several fine saves to keep the giant killers in a commanding position. Sassuolo on the other hand were defending deep and playing on the counter as they should have put the game to bed with late chances. With this result Inter remained second on 54 points, two behind leaders AC Milan and Sassuolo climbed to 11th.
"I am very angry with how we played. We had three days since Wednesday's game [against Liverpool] and we talked about the fact that Sassuolo beat Juventus and Milan away — we had to be wary. We tried to do everything in the second half, created so many chances and were unlucky, but the fact remains we should've had a different approach. We will analyse the situation. We know there are 13 games to go, we are all up there and want to keep going forward. The fact is, a team that wants to win the Scudetto cannot get the approach as wrong as we did today" Inter coach Simone Inzaghi said.
AC Milan couldn’t take advantage of Inter’s slip as they suffered a disappointing 2-2 draw against the bottom side Salernitana. AC Milan, who are challenging for their first title in 11 years, went in front after the fifth minute only when Junior Messias struck after he had been released by fullback Theo Hernandez. Salernitana then did the unthinkable and pulled level in the 29th minute through striker Federico Bonazzoli and then took a surprise lead in the 72nd with a diving header from Milan Djuric.
The Salernitana fans couldn’t rejoice for the moment for too long as the Croatian forward Ante Rebic let fly with a low shot from outside the box which went into the far bottom corner of the net. The draw meant Milan failed to extend their lead at the top of the table and they sit on 56 points after 26 matches, two ahead of city rivals and champions Inter Milan. The main winner from this week could be Napoli if they manage to win against Caligari today as they can reclaim the lead in the Serie A standings.
"The fact we fought back for a draw is positive but we came here for a win. We are disappointed because we didn't play our usual football, We did not play well technically and made some bad choices with the ball. Our passing was sloppy and we were too hurried and paid a big price for the errors we made, which were naive" said Milan coach Stefano Pioli.
Also read: Juventus drop crucial points against Torino in the Turin Derby
The other results were:
- Fiorentina 1 (Piatek) – 0 Atalanta
- Venezia 1 (Henry) – 1 Genoa (Ekuban)
- AS Roma 2 (Volpato, Bove) – 2 Verona (Barak, Tameze)
- Sampdoria 2 (Quagliarella x2) – 0 Empoli
- Udinese 1 (Deulofeu) – 1 Lazio (Anderson)