Inter Milan have moved just one point behind Serie A leaders Napoli ahead of their early title showdown next weekend. Lautaro Mart?nez scored the only goal of the match to help Inter to a 1-0 win over lowly Venezia on Sunday, 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 on Sunday 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 leveled in the seventh minute of stoppage time when Marin Sverko bundled in a cross but it was ruled out by VAR for handball.
Despite - or perhaps because of - the absence of the league's top goalscorer from the starting lineup, 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 b.