Inter stay two points clear at the top with a 3-1 win at Bologna

Tommaso Pobega gave Bologna the lead after ten minutes, finishing off a Juan Miranda cross with the kind of start that had the Dall'Ara believing in an upset. It did not last. Marcus Thuram headed in a Nicolò Barella cross five minutes before half-time, Carlos Augusto turned the game on its head with a finish from a Piotr Zielinski pass just after the hour, and substitute Ange-Yoan Bonny — set up by Carlos Augusto himself — added a third with seven minutes left. 3-1, and the league's form table looks exactly as it did before kick-off: Inter keep winning.

It was Inter's sixth win in seven Serie A matches this season, with the only blemish a 2-2 draw at Roma on matchday 5. Nineteen points from a possible twenty-one keeps them two points clear of second-placed Roma. The two sides lead the division in different ways: Inter have scored more than anyone, 21 goals in seven games, while Roma's six fewer conceded makes them the tighter defence of the pair.

A game Bologna led and still lost comfortably

Bologna had won only one of their previous five league matches before this — a 2-1 win at Lecce on the last matchday, either side of draws with Sassuolo and Torino and defeats to Napoli and Atalanta. Taking an early lead against the league leaders looked like exactly the platform a side in that kind of form needed. Instead, it became the story of a team that could not hold what it built: four yellow cards of their own, 11 fouls committed by Inter in response, and a Dall'Ara crowd that watched the game slip away in the space of twenty-five minutes either side of the break.

The sending-off threat never quite arrived, but Bologna finished the afternoon with four bookings to Inter's three and a goal difference that drops them to minus four for the season. They stay 14th on five points from seven games — not yet in danger, but a long way from the form that beat Lecce a week earlier.

Depth off the bench did the damage

Inter's third goal summed up the afternoon: a player introduced at half-time, Carlos Augusto, scored one and made the next. Five substitutes came on in total — Hakan Çalhanoglu, Bonny, Carlos Augusto, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Andy Diouf — and between them they were directly involved in two of the three goals. For a side already two points clear at the top, that kind of squad depth is close to a second advantage stacked on top of the table position.

Match facts

• 10' — Tommaso Pobega (Bologna), assisted by Juan Miranda
• 44' — Marcus Thuram (Inter), header, assisted by Nicolò Barella
• 69' — Carlos Augusto (Inter), assisted by Piotr Zielinski
• 83' — Ange-Yoan Bonny (Inter), assisted by Carlos Augusto

The chasing pack

Third-placed Lazio are also unbeaten, on 16 points from six games — one fewer than Inter and Roma have played — and travel to Juventus later in this round with a chance to close within a point of Roma. Whatever happens there, Inter stay six points clear of anyone outside the top three, and it is Inter's attack — 21 goals, the most of any Serie A side — rather than their defence that is doing the heaviest lifting in that gap.

What's next

Inter sit top of Serie A on 19 points from seven games, two clear of second-placed Roma. Bologna are 14th on five points, five above the relegation zone, and will look to bounce back the way they did against Lecce last time out.