Lukaku announces his return from injury with a brace for Inter

 

After featuring for Belgium during the international break, Romelu Lukaku returned to the starting line up for Inter to help them complete an extraordinary comeback from 2-0 down to beat Torino 4-2.

Lukaku was inspirational in the comeback. This is what Inter has been missing from the last two games the Belgian missed, especially in the 3-2 loss against Real Madrid in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League group game.

Inter had to were unable to sort out their defensive problem after losing Marcelo Brozovic and Aleksandar Kolarov to COVID-19 infection. In contrast, Toro had to play without Amer Gojak, Sasa Lukic, Mergim Vojvoda, Samir Ujkani, and coach Marco Giampaolo due to the dreaded virus as well.

In the game in which Andrea Belotti sustained an injury in the warm-up and replaced by Simone Zaza, Antonio Conte started with Alexis Sanchez in place of Lautaro Martinez ahead of the upcoming Champions League game with Real Madrid.

The genuine first scoring chance came the way of the visitors. Zaza slid in at the back post to volley a long Simone Verdi cross, which went to the side-netting.

After back and forth efforts from both sides as they search for the opening goal, it came the visitors’ way on the stroke of half-time.

Zaza raced clear, and he thumped a finish into the far bottom corner to give the Granata the lead through Soualiho Meite’s back-heel pass.

They doubled their lead in the second half after Ashley Young accidentally caught Singo in the ribs when trying to clear the ball inside his own area. The action was seen by the VAR, which called the attention of the referee. After viewing it on VAR, he pointed to the spot for a penalty. Former Inter defender Cristian Ansaldi converted the spot-kick emphatically into the roof of the net.

Inter began their fightback with a goal from Sanchez. Lukaku’s scorcher bounced off the crossbar to the Chilean path, who fired in from six yards.

After clipping the upper right again, Lukaku put his name on the scoring sheet with a tap from Sanchez’s pass after the forward dribbled into the box.

Inter got in front for the first time after the intervention of the VAR. Achraf Hakimi, who was caught by a clumsy Nicolas Nkoulou challenge, was initially ruled for offside. But the review showed that since the ball has touched the defender, it translated into a backpass, which made the referee point to the spot for Inter. Lukaku then got his brace after converting the resulting penalty.

The host pout the icing on the cake after Lukaku created another assist for his striker partner, Martinez, with a  rolling across for a tap in for the Argentine striker.

 

Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed