Marcelo Brozovic met Nicolò Barella’s inspired pass to win it for Inter at the 89th minute, after Samir Handanovic had kept Torino at bay.
The Nerazzurri were under pressure after back-to-back defeats to Milan and Bayern Munich, with Romelu Lukaku still injured, so Simone Inzaghi brought Samir Handanovic and Nicolò Barella back into the side for Andre Onana and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Toro were ahead of Inter in the table going into this weekend and coach Ivan Juric was still at home with pneumonia, replaced by assistant manager Matteo Paro. Aleksei Miranchuk, Samuele Ricci and Etrit Berisha were injured.
Lautaro Martinez blasted just over in the opening minutes, while Handanovic needed to stick out a foot to deny Nikola Vlasic at the near post after weaving through defenders.
Demba Seck tested Handanovic from the tightest of angles, while Lautaro Martinez and Marcelo Brozovic tried from distance a couple of times more out of frustration than anything else. They went off at half-time to jeers from the crowd, without a single shot on target from the hosts.
Straight after the restart, Handanovic palmed away a towering Antonio Sanabria header. Toro had a wake-up call on 50 minutes when the referee gave Sanabria a straight red card for leaping with elbow up on Hakan Calhanoglu, but changed it to a yellow following a VAR review. It was clumsy, but not violent.
Handanovic used his legs to parry a Ricardo Rodriguez free kick that took a big deflection off Barella in the wall, then beat away a powerful Vlasic strike.
Federico Dimarco’s deflected cross thumped the outside of the upright and Vanja Milinkovic-Savic palmed a Milan Skriniar header out from under the bar on a corner.
Lautaro Martinez’s header from an Alessandro Bastoni cross skimmed the far post with Milinkovic-Savic only able to stand and watch it go by, as Inter stepped up the pressure in the closing stages.
Handanovic got down fast to get one hand to the Nemanja Radonjic daisy-cutter, but the deadlock was finally broken in the final minute.
Barella floated a ball over the top and Brozovic caught Emirhan Ilkhan napping to flick it in on the volley from five yards.
Inter 1-0 Torino
Brozovic 89 (I)
I think it has been a disappointing result for the media to pile up the issue of crisis on Inter…now they shift the focus on Samp Vs AC Milan…hope draw at least so the media will not eye too much on Inter at least a week
It’s amazing seeing Handanovic so calm even after all the criticism from the media… I hope the rest of the team gets their confidence back quick.