Lautaro Martínez stuns Roma with double as Inter storm back from two goals down

Inter Milan came from two goals down once again. Roma led 2-0 at the Stadio Olimpico thanks to a Manu Koné brace, but Lautaro Martínez struck twice after the break to secure a draw and keep the Nerazzurri firmly in the title race against one of their main challengers. Once more, the Argentine proved to be Gian Piero Gasperini's personal nightmare.

• Lautaro Martínez scored two second-half goals to rescue a point for Inter.
• Manu Koné fired Roma into a 2-0 lead with a first-half double.
• Inter have now fallen 2-0 behind in four straight matches but avoided defeat in three of them.
• Lautaro is unbeaten in 17 games against Gasperini's teams, scoring 11 goals.

Lautaro Martínez keeps haunting Gasperini's Roma

Gasperini could not hide a smile at full time. His team had just thrown away a two-goal lead at home, but as he crossed the pitch to greet the man who inspired Inter's comeback, a grin appeared on his face. "He always scores against me," the Roma boss admitted when asked what he had told Lautaro Martínez. "I told him to stop it! He does it to everyone, though. He's a great champion, everyone thinks very highly of him, even if he makes all of us suffer."

The numbers back up the joke. Lautaro has not lost in 17 matches against teams coached by Gasperini: 12 wins and 5 draws, with 11 goals to his name. It is an inescapable sentence that makes the Inter captain the recurring protagonist of every meeting between the two.

Manu Koné bags an unlikely first-half brace

Roma struck first and with real authority. Six minutes in, Paulo Dybala swung a cross into the box and Nahuel Molina headed it down for Koné to sweep the ball home. The French midfielder is hardly a natural goalscorer: he had found the net twice in each of his two previous seasons at the club, but this time he matched that tally before the break.

His second arrived in the 37th minute, again with Dybala pulling the strings. Gianluca Mancini got a touch on the ball and Koné pounced at the edge of the six-yard box to make it 2-0. The goal was initially ruled out, but VAR confirmed there was no offside.

"He always scores against me. I told him to stop it! He does it to everyone, though. He's a great champion, everyone thinks very highly of him, even if he makes all of us suffer."

Inter hit back immediately after the restart

Roma's grip on the game slipped as soon as the second half began. Before Koné's second goal, Inter had already sent out warnings: Lautaro missed an open goal from point-blank range and Alessandro Bastoni rattled the post from a tight angle. Those signals did not deceive anyone.

Less than a minute into the second half, Lautaro released Marcus Thuram down the left and sprinted through the middle to collect the return, glided between three defenders and beat Mile Svilar with a clinical finish inside the far post. The 2-1 changed the whole complexion of the contest.

Roma hold firm but throw away a precious lead

Svilar kept Roma in front for much of the second half with a stunning reflex save to deny Thuram's header from a corner. In the same move, Lautaro nodded the rebound onto the crossbar. But the Roma goalkeeper could do nothing to stop the equaliser: in the 79th minute, the Argentine rose to head the ball into the net and make it 2-2.

Before that, Roma had a golden chance to seal the win. In the 68th minute, Donyell Malen brought down a Dybala corner and spun to unleash a rocket that smashed into the face of Inter keeper Josep Martínez. The game remained on a knife-edge until the final whistle.

Inter's troublesome habit of falling two goals behind

This was the fourth consecutive game in which Inter found themselves 2-0 down. In three of those, they avoided defeat. Before the trip to Rome, the champions overturned that same deficit to beat Napoli and Udinese, and they nearly repeated the trick away to Real Madrid in the Champions League had it not been for Thibaut Courtois and his superb goalkeeping.

Still, conceding two early goals has become a recurring problem. Inter players were asked one after another why they keep starting matches so poorly, and none could offer a clear explanation. Head coach Cristian Chivu chose to focus on the positives: "I'm going to talk about the second half, because the things I had to say about the first will stay between me and the team."

Roma drop valuable points in their push for the Scudetto

Gasperini acknowledged an alarming trend: on all three occasions Roma have failed to keep a clean sheet this season, the opponent has scored within the first three minutes of the second half. It happened against Inter, Atalanta and Fenerbahçe. The coach had previously joked about Agatha Christie after the European draw, and now the third coincidence has become proof.

Despite the disappointment, the Roma manager sent a message of confidence: "We need to keep our focus on our own business. We need to take this awareness that, in the right conditions, we can be a really good, dangerous team." He added: "We played Inter when they are in peak condition. Maybe, over the course of a season, it won't always be that way."

Roma's attacking threat and Inter's squad depth

Roma's three-pronged attack of Dybala, Malen and Matías Soulé or Rodrigo Mora is fast becoming one of the most dangerous in Serie A. Malen did not score against Inter, but he already has six league goals this season, two more than Lautaro, continuing his prolific form since arriving in January. Dybala, for his part, has four recorded assists, not counting his involvement in both of Koné's goals.

Inter, meanwhile, showcased the depth of their squad. Chivu was able to bring on Petar Sucic to replace a struggling Curtis Jones, as well as Carlos Augusto for Federico Dimarco. He kept Lautaro and Thuram on the pitch until the 90th minute, recognising how well they were playing, with Francesco Pio Esposito and Ange-Yoan Bonny available as strong late replacements.