AC Milan 1-1 Inter: De Vrij’s late equaliser means derby spoils are shared

AC Milan were forced to settle for a point in the Derby della Madonnina against Inter, conceding a late equaliser in a 1-1.

Milan went into the break a goal ahead thanks to Tijjani Reijnders’ finish after Yann Sommer parried Rafael Leao’s cross, and they managed to hold it for a long time despite wave after wave of pressure from Inter.

In the 93rd minute, the Nerazzurri did get the equalising goal with Stefan De Vrij firing in after a cross was chested down to him around six yards out, and that would be the way that the score ended.

It means lost ground on Fiorentina and Juventus who each won earlier today, but in truth it was probably a fair result at the end of the proceedings, if not slightly fortuitous.

Sergio Conceicao made three changes to the starting line-up from the team that lost to Dinamo Zagreb in midweek, with Kyle Walker making his debut at right-back, Ismael Bennacer coming into the midfield and Tammy Abraham as the centre-forward.

Inter started the game much brighter and had the ball in the back of the net inside seven minutes as Lautaro squared for Dimarco to tap into an unguarded goal. However, the striker had strayed well offside before the pass, so it was rightly called off.

Mike Maignan was called into action for the first time a few minutes later, with some nice link-up play inside the Milan box ending with Lautaro laying it off to Barella whose shot was grasped by the Frenchman relatively easy.

In truth it was quite a scrappy opening to the game with both sides struggling to find much end product. Rafael Leao went down inside the box under a challenge from Pavard, appealing for a penalty, yet the offside flag went up as he had strayed a few yards and the Frenchman also got the ball.

The Nerazzurri continued to have the better of the opportunities, and Lautaro perhaps should have done better when Thuram did well to shrug off pressure from Tomori and cut back to the Argentine, who skied his effort.