Napoli stayed in the heels of Serie in Inter Milan managers on Sunday after beating AC Milan 2-1 to stay three points from the pace in the scudetto race. Antonio Conte’s team was ahead with a minute on the clock thanks to the low finish of Matteo Politano, and once Romelu Lukaku failed in his 400th career goal in the 19th minute, the hosts had a cushion large enough to claim the three points. Sunday’s victory was huge for Napoli because next week’s match in Bologna, fourth, is the only one of his last eight championship games to be against a team in the upper half of the division.
And unlike Inter, which exceeded Udinese 2-1 earlier on Sunday, Napoli has no commitments from the European or Italian Cup and can focus exclusively on the attempt to win its second league crown in three seasons.
“We can only take a match at a time,” Politano told Dazn.
“We believe in ourselves, we must try to make our fans fantastic happy and then we will see where we are at the end of the season.”
Milan, who lost Ruben Loftus-Cheek against acute appendicitis, was lamentable in the first half, but the introduction of Rafael Leao and Santiago Gimenez after the break helped to shake the team of Sergio Concenicao of their stupor.
Gimenez could have reduced the gap in the penalty square in the 69th minute, but Alex Meret saved his weak effort, after a fault on Theo Hernandez by Philip Billing.
Another substitute for Luka Jovic pushed the back cross of Hernandez with six minutes to go, but Milan remains ninth and nine points of the positions of the Champions League after having left it too late to set up a return.
Milan will now face the Inter in the first leg of his Italian Cup semi-final on Wednesday before the Fiorentina to visit the San Siro next weekend, with their hopes of the Champions League suspended by a wire.
“We were too slow to enter the match, the first pass they sent led their first goal,” Conceicao told Dazn.
“It was not the first 20 minutes that we prepared … We corrected certain things in the second period and created a lot of chance. I think that a draw would have been a fair result.”
Internal rib
The goals of the first half hour of Marko Arnautovic and Davide Prattesi were just enough to give the Inter their third consecutive victory before the first derby of the Cup with Milan.
But Nervy Inter almost threw the points after coach Simone Inzaghi made a series of changes in the middle of the second half and Oumar Solet reduced the Udinese deficit with a rocket of a 71st minute shot.
Inter has a huge month to come when they are also faced with a quarter -final of the Titanic Champions League with Bayern Munich and delicate lights with a fourth Bologna and Roma who could be crucial for their defense of the title.
“We hardly managed to win a match that we started very well. At some point, we just stopped playing,” said Inzaghi, who was sent after blowing his top in his team and his officials in the last minutes.
Inzaghi will be happy to have seen second channel players presenting themselves given the upcoming commitments of his team, Arnautovic and Frattesi giving Inter An advance of two completely deserved goals at half-time while sweeping Federico Dimarco Cross in the 12th and 29th minutes.
And Inter also put an end to Atalanta the thin hopes to win their first league crown, the shepherd’s outfit at nine points of the pace with eight remaining matches after falling to a 1-0 defeat at La Fiorentina.
Moise Kean has inflicted a first defeat in Atalanta outside the first league since August, when he scored his 16th goal of the season of the half-time season with confidence after stealing Isak Hien on the road line.
“We lack dynamism and energy to give Fiorentina any difficulty … We just have to put it behind and look to the future,” said Gasperini.
Cagliari has reinforced their offer to avoid relegation by beating Monza 3-0 at the bottom of rock and by moving six points from the fall area.
(This story has not been published by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a unionized flow.)
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