Serie A: Atalanta ease past Cagliari with a 5-2 victory; Inter Milan settle for 1-1 draw against Lazio

Milan: Inter Milan dropped their first points of the season as they drew 1-1 against Lazio in Serie A on Sunday. Earlier, Atalanta made it three wins out of three with a 5-2 victory over Cagliari. Juventus were supposed to be playing Napoli later but Gennaro Gattuso’s team has not left Naples after two of its players tested positive for the coronavirus. League authorities and Juventus have indicated the game should go ahead, raising the prospect of Napoli being handed a 3-0 loss by the league judge for failing to show. In Rome, Lazio were still smarting from a 4-1 defeat at home to Atalanta and were beset by injury problems. They lost two more players to injury during the first half and also conceded the opener in the 30th minute when Ivan Perisic cut in from the left and managed to get the ball to Lautaro Martinez, who turned and fired into bottom left corner. Martinez has scored in all three of Inter’s matches this season. However, Inter have been weak at the back in their opening two games, conceding five goals, and their defense let it down again as Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was able to head home Francesco Acerbi’s cross for the equaliser 10 minutes into the second half. [caption id=“attachment_8879091” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez, 2nd left, scores his side’s opening goal during the Serie A match between Lazio and Inter Milan at the Rome Olympic Stadium. AP[/caption] Lazio forward Ciro Immobile, the league’s top goalscorer was sent off 20 minutes from time for hitting Inter midfielder Arturo Vidal. Although Vidal did appear to go down somewhat dramatically. Inter midfielder Stefano Sensi was also shown a straight red card, with three minutes remaining, for a similar incident with Lazio defender Patric. High-scoring Atalanta Atalanta offered up another attacking masterclass, taking their tally to 13 goals in three games. They were the league’s top-scoring team last season with 98 goals. Luis Muriel gave Atalanta the perfect start after just seven minutes and, although Diego Godin equalised on his Cagliari debut, further goals from Alejandro “Papu” Gomez, Mario Pasalic and Duvan Zapata put the home side 4-1 up at the break. Joao Pedro reduced the deficit early in the second half but Sam Lammers sealed the match with his first goal for Atalanta with nine minutes remaining. Parma picked up their first points of the season with a 1-0 win over Hellas Verona while Benevento beat Bologna by the same scoreline.