The Nerazzurri have increased their gap on their Serie A rivals and look like the team to beat


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It was another exciting and eventful Serie A weekend across Italy as the top Italian teams battled and Inter emerged as the clear winners. The team coached by Cristian Chivu, despite suffering and conceding two goals in the first half to Pisa, in the end managed to win 6-2 at San Siro on Friday, while both Napoli and AC Milan failed to win on Sunday. Antonio Conte's side faced another challenging match and lost 3-0 to Juventus in Turin, basically saying goodbye to their chances of winning the back-to-back Scudettos while AC Milan drew 1-1 against AS Roma. Despite avoiding defeat in their away match in Rome, AC Milan remain five points behind the Nerazzurri, but they could benefit in the coming weeks from the fact that Chivu's side are facing a crucial and demanding month in their Champions League campaign.

Here's what to know:

Inter atop the standings
Inter came out of the weekend as the leading candidates for the Scudetto and increased their gap on both AC Milan and Napoli. The side coached by Conte are now probably excluded from the chance of winning the Serie A title for the second season in a row, while Inter are now in the best position possible but will also likely have to face the Champions League playoffs next month, increasing the matches they will have to play in a key month for both Serie A and European campaigns. Chivu was able to rotate his team in the past weeks and some new faces emerged as crucial, starting with Italian young star Francesco Pio Esposito, who scored a key goal against Pisa and showed again to be an important player for Inter and potentially for Italy in the near future. The 18-year old was able to find his space in this team despite playing with some world-class stars such as Marcus Thuram, Lautaro Martinez and Yoan Bonny. Watch out for him.

Napoli facing issues
Conte is facing a difficult moment at Napoli, especially due to injuries. The Azzurri were not able to rotate as much as the Italian coach was hoping to and now Napoli are nine points behind Inter in the Serie A standings. That's a gap that will be difficult to overcome. The Italian manager was unhappy with the performance of the Azzurri that lost 3-0 in Turin against Juventus but also underlined once again how difficult the season is going. Conte was forced to play with new signing Giovane in the second half after the club decided to loan Noa Lang to Galatasaray and sold Lorenzo Lucca to Nottingham Forest. Speaking to DAZN after the match, Conte said, "For the first time in my career, I had to play a player I had never even seen before. Now this has happened to me as well. I haven't trained him for even a single minute."

Napoli will face Chelsea on Wednesday at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona live on Paramount+ in a key match that might also affect the future of the Italian coach as the Azzurri are at risk of being eliminated in the league phase.

AS Roma help Chivu

The AS Roma draw against AC Milan helped Inter to increase their gap with the city rivals but also meant Gian Piero Gasperini's team are now in third place, tied on points with Napoli behind Inter and the Rossoneri. Week by week, AS Roma are improving, and new signing Robinio Vaz showed Gasperini's vision for this team in the long term -- young players who can adapt to his attacking style, something his team probably lacked during the opening months of his stint in Rome. It's too early to understand the impact of the new signing, but even if he only played a few minutes, he looks way more tactically involved than other attacking players that are set to leave the team in the summer, such as Artem Dovbyk or Evan Ferguson.

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