Serie A: Napoli top as Udinese shock Inter

Published on: 16 December 2017

Loris Roselli/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Napoli took full advantage of Inter Milan's first defeat of the Serie A season to take over at the top.

Udinese called time on Inter's 16-match unbeaten run with Kevin Lasagna, Rodrigo De Paul and Antonin Barak scoring the goals in a 3-1 victory at San Siro.

Lasagna's close-range opener was quickly cancelled out by a well-taken volley by Inter captain Mauro Icardi, who reached 17 goals on the season.

But a second-half collapse saw De Paul convert a penalty awarded by the video assistant referee, and Barak confirm Udinese's third straight win with his late effort teed up by Jakub Jankto.

Later, Maurizio Sarri's Napoli scented blood and Kalidou Koulibaly, Piotr Zielinski and Marek Hamsik scored in a 3-0 win away to Torino that provided a two-point lead atop the table.

It was a 115th goal for Slovakian midfielder Hamsik, who thus matched Diego Maradona's long-standing record scoring haul for the Naples club.

In addition to re-establishing Napoli as title challengers to be feared, the 3-1 triumph in Turin ended a worrying sequence of toothless performances.

The southerners drew blanks against Juventus and Fiorentina in their last two league games and lost 2-1 to Champions League strugglers Feyenoord last week.

But here their incisive play was back on display, with Allan, Jorginho and Dries Mertens providing assists for the goals from different parts of the pitch.

Torino striker Andrea Belotti also enjoyed a timely fillip as he recorded his first league goal since September, rattling in Adem Ljajic's second-half assist.

Juventus can also surpass Inter with a win at Bologna on Sunday, but for the night at least they are level on points with Roma, who needed a late goal to beat Cagliari 1-0.

It could have been settled earlier, but Diego Perotti saw his brutally poor penalty saved by Alessio Cragno early in the second half.

But in stoppage time, Cragno came for Aleksandar Kolarov's inswinging free kick but could only punch it directly into the path of Federico Fazio, who could not miss.

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