Serie A | Udinese 0-1 Inter: Lautaro Martinez gets revenge

An early Lautaro Martinez goal proved enough to give Inter another victory away to Udinese, gaining revenge over the side that beat them in August.

The Nerazzurri secured their status as Winter Champions winning the rescheduled midweek game over Lecce, but Hakan Calhanoglu, Denzel Dumfries, Josep Martinez, Tomas Palacios and Raffaele Di Gennaro were still injured. The Friulani, who beat Inter 2-1 at San Siro in Week 2, missed Nicolò Zaniolo, Jordan Zemura and Adam Buksa, so Arthur Atta moved into a more advanced role.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

A spectacular Federico Dimarco volley flashed across the face of goal to skim the far post, but after a couple of opportunities with scuffed finishes, Inter broke through.

Francesco Pio Esposito laid off the Piotr Zielinski through ball for Lautaro Martinez, who got it onto his right boot to drill into the far bottom corner off the outside of the foot from 12 yards.

Manuel Akanji nodded a Dimarco corner wide, while Maduka Okoye got down to fingertip a Dimarco daisy-cutter round the base of the upright.

Keinan Davis robbed Nicolò Barella to set up Jakub Piotrowski, stinging Yann Sommer’s gloves from the edge of the box, but the same midfielder went off with a knee injury on the stroke of half-time.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan stung Okoye’s gloves at the near post on a Pio Esposito pass after Thomas Kristensen gave it away, while Dimarco had the ball in the net on the hour mark only after Esposito wandered offside on the assist.

Carlos Augusto made a sensational sliding tackle to stop Keinan Davis on the counter, but was booked by the referee, with Udinese feeling if it was a foul then it should’ve been a red card.

It remained only 1-0 and the hosts threw on more attacking players, Francesco Acerbi charging down the Idrissa Gueye volley from a corner and Akanji preventing a cross reaching Davis to nod in from six yards.

Lautaro Martinez 20 (I)