Romelu Lukaku broke his Serie A drought of goals from open play after eight months to bag a brace, also assisting Lautaro Martinez as Inter conquer Empoli 3-0.
The Nerazzurri reached the Champions League and Coppa Italia semi-finals, but Juventus receiving their 15-point penalty back pushed them down to sixth in Serie A. They badly needed to end the run of one point from five rounds, but also rotated the squad and missed Milan Skriniar and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Empoli held Milan to a 0-0 draw and then lost to Cremonese, so remained unpredictable, with Koni De Winter, Guglielmo Vicario and Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro out of action.
Fabrizio Parisi’s cross hit Raoul Bellanova’s hand, but the arm was flush with the body in a natural position, then Nicolò Cambiaghi made a perfect first touch to trap a long Bandinelli ball only to then fire straight at on-rushing Samir Handanovic.
The Inter goalkeeper also smothered Tommaso Baldanzi’s finish after a strong run from Parisi down the left, while Roberto Gagliardini fired two efforts over the bar.
Tucu Correa couldn’t make the most of a Raoul Bellanova cross at the near post, while Samuele Perisan rushed out to stop Marcelo Brozovic getting on the end of a cheeky Correa juggle and flicked pass off the outside of the boot.
Inter broke the deadlock with their first shot on target, as straight after the restart Lukaku completed a give and go with Marcelo Brozovic on the edge of the box and his right-foot finish squirmed into the far bottom corner with more precision than power. It was his first Serie A goal from open play since the opening weekend against Lecce.
Cambiaghi and Hakan Calhanoglu fired over, while Razvan Marin’s first touch let him down on a Baldanzi assist from six yards and Baldanzi blasted off target.
Calhanoglu almost scored on the counter-attack, his rising strike from a tricky angle palmed over the bar by Perisan. On the resulting corner, Stefan de Vrij saw his looping header bounce off the top of the crossbar.
Baldanzi’s effort was charged down and Lukaku drilled wide, but the Belgian added a second when he took on a defender with a stepover and smashed it left-footed into the far bottom corner from just inside the area.
Lukaku even added an assist for Lautaro Martinez, surging through the centre and spreading it to the left, where the Argentine shimmied away from Ardian Ismajli to place an angled drive into the far bottom corner.
Empoli 0-3 Inter
Lukaku 48, 76 (I), Lautaro Martinez 88 (I)
Player statistic
| Fabiano Parisi |  |
32' |
| 48' |  |
Romelu Lukaku (Assist: Marcelo Brozovic) | ||
| 76' | |
Romelu Lukaku (Assist: Hakan Calhanoglu) | ||
| 81' | |
Nicolò Barella | ||
| 88' | |
Lautaro Martínez (Assist: Romelu Lukaku) |
Match statistic
