Inter Suffer Another Setback After Losing At Home

Giacomo Bonaventura punished Mauro Icardi’s failure to grab Inter Milan all three points at San Siro by doing so himself for upwardly-mobile Atalanta.

Icardi equalised almost immediately after Bonaventura opened the scoring shortly before half-time but the Argentinian shot wide of an open goal with two minutes remaining.

Bonaventura duly headed home the winner and it finished 2-1 as Atalanta registered a fourth straight victory that moved them into ninth place in the Serie A table.

After struggling for results over the festive period Inter had stabilised and were looking to take fourth place with a third straight win.

In the 35th minute, Atalanta unlocked the game when Bonaventura smashed past the flailing Handanovic from outside of the box.

The hosts were riled and responded in the best possible way.

From the restart, Icardi danced straight into the area, skipped over the challenge Mario Yepes and slipped the ball into the bottom corner.

With winning runs to be extended and targets to be reached over the season run-in, neither club was prepared to settle for the draw and the second half was suitably frenetic.

The moment that may give Inter nightmares for some time to come arrived in the 88th minute.

When Jonathan slipped the ball into Atalanta’s six-yard box, it seemed nothing could stop Icardi from slotting home a dramatic winner.

The Argentinian inexplicably blasted wide, however, and he was punished almost immediately.

On the stroke of full-time, Handanovic dropped to his knees after watching Bonaventura nod home his second goal, this time from a Brienza free-kick.

It was Inter’s first home defeat since October 5 and suddenly a return to Europe seemed much further away.

sky