The Rossoneri took the lead 10 minutes before the half-time break, defender Alex heading home from a pinpoint Keisuke Honda cross to hand them the lead. The holders swept aside Inter with some flowing attacking football and a brace from Alvaro Morata to all but wrap up the tie and put more pressure on Roberto Mancini.
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Mancini was upset his side was not awarded a penalty after a challenge between Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and Inter striker Eder.
He added that Mauro Icardi’s penalty miss for Inter, when Milan were 1-0 ahead, was the turning point.
Mancini, meanwhile, apologised to the Inter fans who witnessed their heaviest derby defeat in nearly five years.
AC Milan have named Jeremy Menez in their squad for the crunch derby against rivals Inter on Sunday. Since the beginning of the season, we have said that we wanted to qualify for Europe and today we have shown we can do that. We have all the quality needed to win tomorrow night. That’s why I celebrated with him and I’m thankful for the opportunity he has given me. Brazilian-born Italy global Eder joins Inter after four years at Sampdoria, where he scored 49 goals in 135 matches and is joint second-highest scorer in Serie A this season with 12 goals. Sinisa Mihajlovic’s side have only lost 1 of their last 11 games in all competitions, and even on that occasion against Bologna they demonstrated that they are capable of creating lots of chances (as well as wasting plenty of them), so this appears to be a better side than the one we edged past back in September. They suffered a heavy 3-0 loos earlier this week when they faced Juventus in Coppa Italia semi-final leg one, and their confidence on cliching the Serie A title suffered a heavy blow. However the Argentine hit his spot-kick against the post.
“It’s definitely the worst January of my coaching career”, Mancini told Inter Channel. “We are not brilliant, we are struggling to score and we are conceding too much, but we cannot do anything apart from roll up our sleeves and try to do more”.
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Napoli (47) host Empoli on Sunday (1400 GMT) and second-placed Juventus (45), who have won their last 11 league games, visit Chievo (1130).
