Soccer Football - Serie A - Inter Milan v Lecce - San Siro, Milan, Italy - December 23, 2023 Inter Milan's Kristjan Asllani celebrates after the match with teammates REUTERS/Daniele Mascolo
MILAN (Reuters) -Goals from Yann Bisseck and Nicolo Barella gave Inter Milan a 2-0 home win over Lecce in Serie A on Saturday to restore their four-point lead at the top of the table.
Inter lead the standings on 44 points after 17 games, four points ahead of Juventus who beat Frosinone 2-1 on Saturday. Lecce remained 12th with 20 points.
Lecce looked like keeping Inter scoreless until the break but Yann Bisseck netted his first goal for the club in the 43rd minute when he headed home a free kick whipped in by Hakan Calhanoglu.
The 23-year-old defender had earlier thumped a volley onto the crossbar from a corner.
Four minutes after the interval Lecce thought they had a penalty, but a VAR check overruled the referee's decision for a handball offence.
After sustained pressure from Lecce in the second half, the home side finally found a second goal in the 78th minute when Barella combined with Marko Arnautovic to settle the Inter nerves.
The pair played a one-two and Marko Arnautovic produced a backheel to put the ball into the path of Barella all alone in front of the keeper and he calmly took a touch before slotting his effort past Wladimiro Falcone.
"He made an unbelievable assist, I'm not surprised because in terms of understanding with his back to goal, he's one of the best players I've played with," Barella told Inter TV.
An injury to Inter's leading scorer Lautaro Martinez gave Arnautovic his first Serie A start of the season, and while his search for a first league goal with Inter continues, he redeemed some early misses with the assist for Barella.
After the goal, a visibly emotional Arnautovic fell to his knees and was swarmed by his team mates.
"They know I am in a difficult moment, we speak every day. I started the season with an assist, but then I remained six weeks out," Arnautovic told DAZN.
"It's been difficult to recover, but now I am getting close to my best. They see it, they talk to me every day, but it's not an easy moment. I can only thank the club, my team mates and the fans."
Lecce went down to 10 men in the 83rd minute when Lameck Banda was shown a red card for dissent, and Inter pushed on for more goals but were denied by a fantastic double-save by Falcone on Benjamin Pavard and Kristjan Asllani two minutes from time.
Inter, knocked out of the Coppa Italia on Wednesday by Bologna, notched their fourth consecutive league win and Simone Inzaghi's side are now unbeaten in 11 Serie A games. Lecce lost for the first time in six matches.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Ed Osmond and Pritha Sarkar)
