Inter Milan moved back up to second from fourth in Serie A courtesy of strikes either side of HT from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lautaro Martínez in a 2-0 win over US Lecce – their ninth straight H2H win at San Siro against the team from Apulia.
After a surprise 1-0 defeat at Bologna last time out, the Nerazzurri will have been looking for a fast start to avenge that loss, and in the opening three minutes, Hakan Çalhanoğlu stung the palms of Wladimiro Falcone from 25 yards.
Despite Edin Ďzeko’s eight-game goal drought coming into this contest, the Bosnian was trusted to lead the line for Inter ahead of Romelu Lukaku, but he was unable to end that lean spell in the opening period, nodding a back-post delivery from Çalhanoğlu wide of the target.
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However, Dumfries – making his 350th career appearance – did play his part in making it 2-0 on 53 minutes, finding Martínez on the edge of the area for the captain to sidefoot past Falcone for his 14th league goal of the campaign.
Marco Baroni threw on Rémi Oudin and Alexis Blin just before the hour mark, but the two Frenchmen were unable to help change the tide as Inter eased to victory, moving within 15 points of runaway leaders SSC Napoli after the Partenopei’s unexpected 1-0 defeat at home to Champions League-chasing SS Lazio on Friday night.
