Football: Soccer-Leaders Inter ease to 4-0 win over bottom-placed Salernitana

MILAN (Reuters) -Leaders Inter Milan lived up to expectations as they cruised to a 4-0 home win over bottom-placed Salernitana on Friday to strengthen their grip on top of Serie A.

Goals from Marcus Thuram, Lautaro Martinez, Denzel Dumfries and Marko Arnautovic sealed the win that lifted Simone Inzaghi’s side to 63 points, 10 clear of second-placed Juventus, who were shocked by Udinese on Monday.

“The lads did very well. It was a solid match, approached in the best possible way. Salernitana had created problems for many teams,” coach 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.”

The hosts grabbed the lead in the 17th minute thanks to Thuram’s powerful strike from the centre of the box off Carlos Augusto’s cross.

Serie A top scorer Martinez doubled the lead just two minutes later as he scored his 20th league goal of the season, curling a superb long-range shot from Augusto’s second assist of the night.

The Argentina international 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,” Martinez 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.”

Dumfries made it 3-0 in the 40th minute, pouncing on a rebound from goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, while substitute Arnautovic’s tap-in sealed the rout in the final seconds of the game.

Inter next host Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.

“As we said after (finishing runner-up at the 2023) Champions League final, this is a very strong team and we work to hold Inter’s flag high.” added Martinez.

(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico City, editing by Pritha Sarkar)