Inter Milan sneak past Juventus

Inzaghi’s men beat Turin giants 1-0 all thanks to controversial retaken penalty

MILAN:

Inter Milan kept their title defence alive with Sunday's 1-0 win at Juventus thanks to a controversial retaken penalty which moved them three points behind leaders AC Milan and Napoli, 3-1 winners at Atalanta.

The champions came away from the Allianz Stadium in Turin with a narrow win in a bad-tempered match decided by Hakan Calhanoglu's spot-kick which was scored at the second attempt five minutes into first-half stoppage time.

Inter stay third with a game in hand and extend to four points the gap between themselves and third-placed Juve, who will be 10 points off the pace with seven games remaining if Milan beat Bologna on Monday after their unbeaten league run ended at 16 matches.

"It's a huge step for us. We know that we've dropped points lately, but we're going to try to recover them over the remaining eight games," said coach Simone Inzaghi.

A game that started after an Italian and Ukrainian singer belted out a rendition of John Lennon's 'Imagine' to promote peace in Ukraine turned ugly almost immediately after kick-off, with rough tackles and niggly play which was dominated by the wasteful home side.

Events turned on the final few minutes of the opening period, with bedlam breaking out after Inter were awarded their spot-kick for Alvaro Morata treading on Denzel Dumfries' foot.

Calhanoglu's weak first effort was saved by Wojciech Szczesny and from there chaos ensued, with Inter's players celebrating after the ball was clumsily bundled in by Juve's defenders only for that goal to be ruled out for a foul.

A VAR check then showed that Matthijs de Ligt, who stopped Calhanoglu from scoring on the rebound, had encroached in the area before the Turk missed his penalty, allowing him a second chance to slam home the opener which was taken with gusto.

Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri was livid on the sidelines but kept his cool post-match, saying that his team were "out of the title race" despite being the better team.

"I'm not going to say things that won't help right now," he said to DAZN.

"We played well and had lots of shots on goal, it's just a shame about the defeat."