Verona hold Inter in a thriller

Inter Milan’s Jeison Murillo (left) vies for the ball with Luca Toni of Verona in their Serie A match at the Bentegodi Stadium in Verona on Sunday. The match ended 3-3. (Photo: AP)

Roberto Mancini was left counting the cost of missed chances as Inter Milan slipped further out of Serie A title contention with a 3-3 draw away to basement side Verona on Sunday.

The result left Inter in fourth place in the league. Inter’s bid for just their second win in their past six outings got off to the perfect start when Jeison Murillo rose above the hosts’ defence to head past Pierluigi Gollini on eight minutes.

But even before then the visitors had missed two great chance to break the deadlock through Rodrigo Palacio, who fired straight at goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini, and Marcelo Brozovic after he sent his shot over the bar.

And the game turned on its head in three first-half minutes when Filip Helander and Eros Pisano struck to give Verona a 2-1 lead just after the quarter hour. Helander pulled Verona level with a near carbon copy of Murillo’s goal, the Swedish centre-back rising above the Inter defence to glance a header past Samir Handanovic at the keeper’s far post.

Pisano was given even more space by Inter’s defence three minutes later when he rose to meet a free kick to see his header spin into the back of the net. Inter could have levelled in spectacular style soon after when Brozovic met a cut-back cross from the byeline with a superb volley that spun just wide of Gollini’s upright.

Gollini did well to come out and block Palacio’s cross-shot into the area as Icardi ran in for the final touch, then had no problem collecting Geoffrey Kondogbia’s soft effort from outside the area.

Those misses proved costly when Artur Ionita rose above the Inter defence to beat Handanovic with a third header to send Verona’s fans, who had celebrated their side’s opening win of the campaign against Atalanta last week, delirious just three minutes before the hour.

But Inter were far from finished and quickly capitalised on soft defending to pull level with 12 minutes on the clock through striker Icardi.