Serie A: Inter Milan boost faint title hopes with win over SPAL; Torino beat Genoa

Milan: Inter Milan reignited their faint hopes of winning the Serie A title by thrashing bottom-place Spal 4-0 on Thursday. Antonio Candreva, Cristiano Biraghi, Alexis Sánchez and Roberto Gagliardini scored to help Inter move to within six points of league leader Juventus with five rounds left. Spal remained 11 points from safety. Inter dominated from the start but took until eight minutes from halftime to break the deadlock when Candreva fired home following a pinpoint assist from Sánchez. Biraghi doubled Inter’s lead 10 minutes after the break and he set up Sánchez five minutes later with a cross from the left. Gagliardini had the easiest of finishes to add to the scoreline when he prodded in Ashley Young’s cross. Relegation battle Torino beat fellow struggler Genoa 3-0 to boost their hopes of avoiding relegation. Bremer, Saša Lukić and Andrea Belotti scored to help Torino move eight points clear of the relegation zone. Genoa remains in trouble as they are only one point above 18th-placed Lecce. In Turin, the home side took the lead in the 32nd minute when Bremer headed in a corner from Simone Verdi. The Torino defender had earlier headed a similar chance narrowly wide. Lukić was brought on for Verdi in the 67th and he doubled Torino’s lead nine minutes later when he curled into the top corner from long range. Belotti capped a good night for the home side in the final minute, scoring for the seventh straight match, with a powerful shot after intercepting a poor back pass from Genoa forward Goran Pandev.