Top of the table thriller

The Scudetto celebrations were already dying down with speculation turning to Luciano Spalletti’s future, while the Nerazzurri rotated the squad between a Champions League semi-final win over Milan and Wednesday’s Coppa Italia Final against Fiorentina. Chucky Lozano, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Milan Skriniar were injured, with Valentin Carboni at the Under-20 World Cup.

Inter inflicted the first Serie A defeat of the season in January and were the only side Napoli had failed to beat this term.

A cheeky Piotr Zielinski free kick routine sent Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa clear, only for him to scuff the finish wide, then the same midfielder skimmed the upright from the edge of the area. Victor Osimhen’s header was straight at Andre Onana, but Napoli were furious because Roberto Gagliardini really should’ve had a second yellow card after just 23 minutes for his late lunge on Kvicha Kvaratskhelia.

Osimhen also had penalty appeals rejected for a slight Alessandro Bastoni shirt-tug, then an acrobatic overhead kick went wide and Zielinski fired a free kick wide. Gagliardini did not learn the lesson of that let-off and went into another mistimed tackle on Anguissa for an inevitable second yellow card before half-time.

Nonetheless, 10-man Inter still created their first real chance with Lukaku hitting the side-netting on Nicolò Barella’s slide-rule pass. After the restart, Onana flew to deny Giovanni Di Lorenzo at the near post on a corner routine, while Zielinski blasted over the bar. Inter defended even deeper, only going on the counter rarely with Raoul Bellanova’s roll across for Robin Gosens intercepted by Anguissa.

Onana palmed a wonderful Kvaratskhelia curler out of the far top corner, but Napoli continued to pour forward and broke the deadlock when Zielinski threaded through for Anguissa, who flicked the ball up, spun round and struck on the volley mid-turn into the bottom corner from 12 yards.

There was a chaotic move on 79 minutes, as first Denzel Dumfries saw his looping header cleared off the line, then Napoli scored on the counter-attack with Zielinski losing his footing and sliding into a tackle on Danilo D’Ambrosio, leading to Giovanni Simeone’s goal. However, it was disallowed for a foul on D’Ambrosio, although that was a debatable decision. Moments later, Inter equalised, as Federico Dimarco caught the Napoli defence napping and put a low cross in from the left that Lukaku prodded in before the distracted Juan Jesus.