Daniele Rugani’s last-gasp winner was his third goal of the season (MARCO BERTORELLO)
Lautaro Martinez scored his 100th Serie A goal on Sunday as he netted twice in Inter Milan’s 4-0 thumping of Lecce which kept their league lead over Juventus at nine points.
Argentina striker Martinez joined the 100 club in Italy’s top flight when he opened the scoring in the 15th minute in southern Italy.
And 10 minutes after the break he slammed in the third for an Inter team which was almost unrecognisable from the one which beat Atletico Madrid on Tuesday but still capable of steamrollering their opposition.
“We’re consistent, we play really good football… I’m really happy because we’re doing great work and we need to keep going because it’s not finished yet,” said Martinez to DAZN.
“When I left home at 15 years old I never imagined that I would experience all this. It’s down to hard work and the sacrifices my family made when I was a kid.”
Davide Frattesi netted two minutes before Martinez’s second and Stefan De Vrij rounded off the scoring against 14th-placed Lecce with a header from a 67th-minute corner.
Inter coach Simone Inzaghi made seven changes from his team’s 1-0 Champions League win over Atletico but captain Martinez started and did the damage for Inter, as so often he does.
The 26-year-old has scored 22 goals in 23 league appearances in a sensational season for both him and his team as the Scudetto is starting to look like an inevitability.
Inter have won all 10 of their matches since the turn of the year and have kept 22 clean sheets this season.
They could be 12 points clear before next weekend’s fixtures as they have their game in hand on Wednesday night, against in-form Atalanta who play the first of two successive matches at the San Siro against AC Milan on Sunday night.
That fixture will be anything but a walk in the park as Atalanta have won five league games in a row but Inzaghi will have his rested starters fresh and ready to strike another blow in a one-horse title race.
– Rugani saves Juve –
Defender Daniele Rugani forced home a stoppage time winner as Juventus defeated Frosinone 3-2 in Turin to end a worrying four-match winless run.
Hosts Juve looked set for another embarrassing result as goals from Walid Cheddira and Marco Brescianini cancelled out Dusan Vlahovic’s first-half brace.
But Rugani managed to get his boot on Vlahovic’s flick-on from a corner in the fifth-minute of injury time and get Juve going back in the right direction.
Sunday’s win made Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri the first in Serie A history to get more than a thousand points, his total now at 1,002 according to statistics provider Opta.
“I’m really happy because a goal like that in the last minute, I couldn’t have asked for more,” said Rugani to Sky Sport.
“I’m happy to have the team win. Let’s take the positive and go again.”
Victor Osimhen’s second goal in a matter of days wasn’t enough to reignite Napoli’s hopes of European football as Zito Luvumbo struck in the 96th minute to snatch a 1-1 draw for Cagliari.
Nigeria forward Osimhen, who netted Napoli’s leveller against Barcelona on Wednesday, looked to have given Francesco Calzona a win in his first league match in charge of the champions when he nodded home Giacomo Raspadori’s cross in the 66th minute.
Instead Napoli stay ninth, four points behind Roma who are in the Europa Conference League spot ahead of the capital club’s match with Torino on Monday, and 11 behind fourth-placed Bologna.
“The problem is mental. There’s nothing wrong with the team physically, we saw that on Wednesday and it was the same today,” said Calzona to DAZN.
“It’s going to take time because you can’t solve these problems from one day to the next.”
Cagliari would have leapt out of the drop zone with a win, but although Claudio Ranieri’s team remain second-from-bottom they are level on 20 points with 17th-placed Sassuolo who host Napoli midweek and sacked coach Alessio Dionisi on Sunday evening.
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