Inter cruise as Roma home in on record

Printer Friendly

Share

Text Size

ROME, Feb 7, 2010 (AFP) - Inter Milan continued their inexorable march towards a fifth straight Serie A title as they crushed Cagliari 3-0 at the San Siro while AC Milan were held to a 0-0 draw at Bologna on Sunday.

That allowed AS Roma to leapfrog Milan into second as they extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 19 games with a crucial 1-0 success at Fiorentina.

Although Inter's lead was pegged back to eight points, they have a game in hand over the Roma and are 10 points ahead of third-placed Milan.

Ahead of the Milan derby two weeks ago the Serie A title race seemed to be alive and kicking with Milan knowing a victory would have left them three points behind and with a game in hand.

But they lost that and have drawn their next two leaving the champions to creep over the hill and out of sight.

Goals from Goran Pandev, Walter Samuel and Diego Milito earned Jose Mourinho's men the three points that give them a seemingly unassailable lead.

It left Mourinho reflecting on a profitable month.

"It's an important victory because it puts us 10 points clear of second place," he said prior to Roma's win.

"We developed a lot of confidence in January and today (Sunday) we began with a confident and attacking mentality.

"Cagliari aren't an easy team to play and even when 2-0 down they didn't let up and created some problems.

"But we were solid and compact and Pandev had a great game."

There was an ominous feel to the game when Inter took the lead after just six minutes.

Captain Javier Zanetti made a typically purposeful burst down the right flank, breaking into the box and pulling the ball back for Samuel Eto'o, playing his first game since returning from African Nations Cup duty.

However, the Cameroon hitman's poor shot hit two defenders before falling invitingly into Pandev's path, the Macedonian slotting home at the near post.

On 20 minutes it seemed to be game, set and match as centre-back Samuel rose in the box to head home a Maicon corner for 2-0.

And yet Cagliari could, and possibly should, have gone into the break level.

Alessandro Matri had a goal wrongly disallowed on 34 minutes when, although he was marginally offside as the ball was played through to him, television replays showed that it was Inter full-back Davide Santon's touch which sent him in on Julio Cesar.

And two minutes later it was Julio Cesar who stunningly kept Cagliari off the scoresheet as he made a reaction save from Brazilian countryman Nene's acrobatic volley from close range.

Any hopes Cagliari had were wiped out two minutes after the restart following a brilliant goal from Inter that saw Pandev feed Eto'o on the edge of the Sardinians' box, take the return pass and slip in Milito, who took a touch and then slid the ball low into the corner.

Roma's Mirko Vucinic scored the only goal of the game eight minutes from time as Claudio Ranieri's men took their recent run to 16 wins and three draws in their last 19.

Only twice before have Roma teams been on longer unbeaten runs with Fabio Capello's 2003-04 team managing 20 games while the record of 35 matches dates from the early 1980s when Nils Liedholm was in charge.

Milan laboured to a draw in Bologna with loan signing from Inter Mancini failing to impress on his debut.

Ronaldinho came closest to breaking the deadlock as he hit the bar with a sideways bicycle kick in the second half and in injury time captain Massimo Ambrosini also hit the bar with a header.

Leonardo said he had no complaints with his team but already he seemed to be throwing in the towel.

"I think things (in the league) are very clear. Inter have been winning for a few years with a solid foundation," he said.

"I can't remember another team that managed to win so much for so many years in a row."

Antonio Di Natale scored a hat-trick for hosts Udinese in a 3-1 win as they ended Walter Mazzarri's 15-match unbeaten league run since taking over at Napoli in October.

Napoli's Cristian Maggio had an eventful game, giving away a penalty, scoring and then being sent-off before half-time while there was crowd trouble before the game that saw four people taken to hospital.