Having only dropped two points in their last ten matches, Serie A leaders and reigning champions Inter came into the 230th edition of the ‘Derby dDellaMadonnina’ with a strong, fighting attitude. Despite the setback of having a Denzel Dumfries goal ruled out for offside after ten minutes, ‘I Nerazzurri’ dominated the attacking play, only to be denied by an impressive goalkeeping display from Mike Maignan. Only a minute after the disallowed goal, the Frenchman was forced to react quickly to get a glove on Marcelo Brozović’s wickedly-deflected attempt.
Maignan was on form again just before the half-hour mark, denying Dumfries with an outstretched leg, but the pressure eventually told as Inter’s set-pieces became increasingly purposeful. Aiming to make a goal contribution in successive Milan derbies since switching from red to blue last summer, Hakan Çalhanoğlu floated a 38th-minute corner over a crowded penalty area and found Ivan Perišić, who calmly placed a shot into the bottom-right corner and put Inter 1-0 up with his 50th goal for the club.
‘I Rossoneri’ fought back after HT, hoping to salvage at least a point and upset their city rivals, though their best opportunities from Junior Messias and Rafael Leão were deflected behind. This gave Inter the impetus to try and wrap things up, though they were similarly wasteful, as Perišić blasted over a carbon copy of his earlier goal opportunity with 20 minutes remaining.
It proved to be a costly miss, as AC Milan flipped the scoreline on its head thanks to a three-minute Olivier Giroud brace. The striker had been an anonymous figure at the San Siro for 75 minutes but reacted quickest to tap in the equalizer from Brahim Díaz’s deflected initial strike, before winning it for AC with 12 minutes to play with a smart, low strike that Samir Handanović was unable to tip behind.
Theo Hernández received a straight red card for a wild, sliding challenge in added time, but nothing was going to stop the ‘Rossoneri’ from claiming the city’s bragging rights. In a good omen for AC Milan, the last time they came back from aanHT deficit to win a league derby was during their title-winning 2003/04 season. Meanwhile I, not spurn the opportunity to move seven points clear of their rivals, though they still possess a potentially vital game in hand
