Last-gasp goal sees Inter beat Verona and go five points clear
Verona struggled to register a single shot on target in their defeat to rock-bottom Salernitana last time out, but it wasn’t long before Tomas Suslov forced Yann Sommer into a save from a tight angle.
However, things quickly turned sour for the visitors. Emerging fresh from his two-match hiatus due to injury, Lautaro Martinez returned with a bang, calmly slotting home his fifth goal in four outings against Verona with a low drive from close range after Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s impressive assist.
Inter’s hopes of a fifth straight clean sheet victory at San Siro were then endangered when Milan Djuric headed an accurate cross into the middle of the goal, only to find Sommer waiting to save it on the goal line.
But with just 15 goals scored all season, only above Empoli's 10, Verona rarely troubled the Nerazzurri fortification, as the hosts took a comfortable lead going into the interval.
Simone Inzaghi’s outfit thought they had doubled their lead immediately after the restart, but Martinez was ruled offside in the build-up play, much to the joy of the few hundred Verona faithful. And although the Gialloblu struggled to make an impact for much of the half, they emerged with the goods against the run of play with 15 minutes left.
A surprise awaited Inter, who had previously not conceded a single goal past the 75th-minute mark this season, as substitute Thomas Henry tapped in the equaliser with his first touch of the game following Ondrej Duda’s pinpoint cross from the right flank.
With the roaring home crowd’s backing, the Nerazzurri came up with the goods in the dying minutes thanks to Frattesi’s opportunistic tap-in following a rebound, after which Darko Lazovic received his marching orders.
Inzaghi’s men, however, were in for yet another surprise, when Verona were awarded a penalty in stoppage time, only for Henry to strike his spot-kick off the post, following which the rebound was squandered into thin air.
The result lifts Inter five points above Derby d’Italia rivals Juventus, while Verona will rue their lapses at the death, as they remain rooted to the bottom of the table.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Davide Frattesi (Inter)
