Inter beat nine-man Udinese 2-1 in Serie A at the Stadio Fruili on Tuesday evening.
Mauro Icardi opened the scoring from the spot prior to a surprise leveller from Antonio Di Natale, with Inter substitute Lukas Podolski hammering home to seal the win for the away side.
The contest began with a couple of long-range efforts from wither side, the best of which came from Inter’s Fredy Guarin when he took aim 25 yards out only to find Udinese goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis equal to the shot. Karnezis then athletically palmed Hernanes’ beautifully struck free-kick from the right which almost crept in.
Tempers flared midway through the first half when the Nerazzurri were incorrectly awarded a corner kick by referee Gianluca Rocchi, resulting in a yellow card for Udinese’s Maurizio Domizzi due to dissent. The initial decision in favour of Inter was eventually reversed following ongoing protests.
Brazilian star Hernanes was running the show from the middle of the park and his close-range header when under severe pressure from the opposition back-line was gratefully gathered by Karnezis.
Domizzi later sliced the impressive South American down with a poorly-timed challenge five minutes before the break to earn himself an unnecessary early bath.
A further two efforts from former Lazio man Hernanes almost gave the visitors a lead, sandwiching a shot on the turn by Mauro Icardi that was parried wide.
Giovanni Pasquale came off the bench to replace Guilherme, as coach Andrea Stramaccioni attempted to reshuffle his pack after Domizzi’s dismissal with his former club coming on strong.
It seemed only a matter of time before Inter made the breakthrough, and so it proved shortly after the restart when Danilo fouled Mateo Kovacic in the area.
Icardi stepped up to hit his 18th league goal of the season into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.
Amazingly, the advantage lasted only two minutes when veteran striker Antonio Di Natale burst between two defenders to rifle past Samir Handanovic for an equaliser.
Udinese inexplicably pressed the self-destruct button on the hour when Emmanuel Badu aggressively pursued the referee resulting in a red card to leave the Zebrette with nine men on the field and substitute Lukas Podolski made the hosts pay dearly for their indiscipline when he found the top corner with an arrow-like strike from distance to put Inter in total control.
It seemed the visitors were looking to walk the ball over the line for a third, while taking far too long to get efforts on target.
A number of half-chances were sent high and wide when they did finally pull the trigger, while the Bianconeri attempted to catch their opponents on the counter twice to no avail.
The tiring home team hit the side-netting late on but simply couldn’t find a way through despite their best efforts, as a nervy Inter claimed all three points to move up to 7th place.
