Inter trim gap to Serie A leaders Napoli

MILAN (AP):

Inter Milan moved just one point behind Serie A leaders Napoli ahead of their early title showdown next weekend.

Lautaro Martínez scored the only goal of the match to help Inter to a 1-0 win over lowly Venezia yesterday shortly after Napoli were stunned 3-0 at home by Atalanta.

Napoli coach Antonio Conte, who led Inter to the Serie A title in 2021, takes his team to San Siro next Sunday.

Inter have another tough match before that as they host Arsenal in the Champions League on Wednesday.

It was an entertaining match at San Siro yesterday and Inter, who knew they could cut the gap to Napoli to a solitary point, had plenty of chances. But Nerazzurri goalkeeper Yann Sommer was also kept busy.

Inter thought they had taken the lead seven minutes into the second half when Federico Dimarco rolled the ball across from the left for Henrikh Mkhitaryan to blast into the roof of the net but it was ruled out for offside.

The home side did break the deadlock in the 65th minute in almost identical fashion as Dimarco whipped in another cross for Lautaro to head into the far bottom corner.

Venezia thought they had levelled in the seventh minute of stoppage time when Marin Sverko bundled in a cross, and the whole of the Venezia bench streamed onto the field in celebration, but it was ruled out by VAR for handball.

SEASON

Despite – or perhaps because of – the absence of the league’s top goalscorer from the starting line-up, Atalanta inflicted what was only Napoli’s second defeat of the season and the first since the opening day.

Atalanta moved up to third, three points below Napoli.

Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini, surprisingly, opted to drop Mateo Retegui. That was reportedly because he wanted a more unpredictable attack against a Napoli defence that had kept clean sheets in six of their past seven matches and only conceded five goals all season.

Gasperini ,instead, picked Ademola Lookman and Charles De Ketelaere in attack with Mario Pasalic behind them, and that paid off almost immediately as Atalanta took the lead in the 10th minute.

A cross was cleared by Napoli but only as far as the edge of the area, where it was put back in, and De Ketelaere nodded it back for Lookman to slot into the near bottom corner.

Napoli almost levelled immediately, but Scott McTominay’s powerful effort crashed off the right post.

The Atalanta forwards combined again in the 31st as De Ketelaere raced down the right and squirmed between two players before passing across to Lookman, who slotted a hard shot into the far bottom corner.