Juventus beats Inter 1-0 to open up 6-point lead in Serie A

MILAN (AP) — No team appears capable of stopping Juventus after the Bianconeri beat Inter Milan 1-0 Sunday in an entertaining Derby d’Italia in Serie A.

Juan Cuadrado scored on the stroke of halftime for Juventus, which also hit the bar twice in the first period as Massimiliano Allegri’s side extended its Serie A record to 28 consecutive home wins.

The Juventus match was entertaining from the start and Paulo Dybala could have had two stunning goals in the opening 12 minutes.

First his overhead kick was brilliantly saved by Samir Handanovic after Mario Mandzukic nodded down Stephan Lichtsteiner’s cross.

Mandzukic’s diving header was also just wide of the right upright while Handanovic fingertipped Miralem Pjanic’s free kick onto the crossbar seconds before Cuadrado gave Juve the lead, firing the resulting corner into the top right.

Perisic was sent off for dissent in stoppage time.

Milan was third in December but one point from its past four league matches has seen it slip to eighth, 10 points behind the Champions League places.

There’s a lot of regret because of the number of chances we created ... it’s certainly a crisis of results, but we have to try to remain calm.

Milan had further chances to take the lead before Sampdoria broke the deadlock after Gabriel Paletta tripped Fabio Quagliarella in the area and Muriel fired the resulting spot kick into the bottom right corner.

Milan should have leveled three minutes from time but Gianluca Lapadula fired straight at Viviano from close range and two follow-up efforts were blocked before the ball was finally cleared.

Milan’s misery was compounded in the final minute when Jose Sosa was sent off following two yellow cards in five minutes.

[...] the home side leveled the match shortly before halftime as Ahmad Benali tapped in a rebound and Gaston Brugman volleyed in the equalizer, after Pescara had also seen Gianluca Caprari’s penalty saved.

Parolo completed his hat trick with another header four minutes after the break and Keita Balde Diao and Ciro Immobile extended Lazio’s advantage.

Andrea Belotti moved into second in the goalscoring charts with his 15th league goal of the season but his Torino side could only draw 1-1 at Empoli, in a match hit by heavy rain.