Martínez reaches landmark as Inter sweep Salernitana aside to stretch lead
Inter lived up to expectations as they cruised to a 4-0 home win over bottom-placed Salernitana to strengthen their grip on the top of Serie A. The win put Simone Inzaghi’s side on 63 points, 10 clear of second-placed Juventus, who were shocked by Udinese on Monday.
The hosts grabbed the lead in the 17th minute thanks to Marcus Thuram’s powerful strike from the centre of the area. Lautaro Martínez doubled Inter’s lead two minutes later as he scored his 20th league goal of the season, curling a superb long-range shot from Carlos Augusto’s second assist of the night.
Denzel Dumfries made it 3-0 in the 40th minute, pouncing on a rebound from the goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, while Marko Arnautovic’s tap-in sealed the rout in the final seconds of the game.
“The lads did very well. It was a solid match, approached in the best possible way. Salernitana had created problems for many teams,” Inzaghi told reporters. “We still have a long way to go. We must stay focused even when we sleep. We are looking only at the next game, our goal is to reach the end of all competitions.”
Martínez became only the third player to score at least 20 goals in three consecutive Italian league seasons after Giuseppe Meazza and Stefano Nyers. “We approach every game the same way, sometimes it works from the start and sometimes it gets tougher,” he told Sky Sport Italia. “We always try to press high, recover the ball quickly and score lots of goals. We always have our destiny in our hands, we worked so hard on gaining maturity, and now we step onto the field aware of our own strength, eager to show it in every game.”
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Inter host Atlético Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.