Inter cruise as Roma home in on record

Inter Milan continued their inexorable march towards a fifth straight Serie A title as they crushed Cagliari 3-0 at the San Siro while AC Milan were held to a 0-0 draw at Bologna on Sunday.

That allowed AS Roma to leapfrog Milan into second as they extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 19 games with a crucial 1-0 success at Fiorentina.

Although Inter's lead was pegged back to eight points, they have a game in hand over the Roma and are 10 points ahead of third-placed Milan.

Ahead of the Milan derby two weeks ago the Serie A title race seemed to be alive and kicking with Milan knowing a victory would have left them three points behind and with a game in hand.

But they lost that and have drawn their next two leaving the champions to creep over the hill and out of sight.

Goals from Goran Pandev, Walter Samuel and Diego Milito earned Jose Mourinho's men the three points that give them a seemingly unassailable lead.

It left Mourinho reflecting on a profitable month. "It's an important victory because it puts us 10 points clear of second place," he said prior to Roma's win.

"We developed a lot of confidence in January and today [Sunday] we began with a confident and attacking mentality.

"Cagliari aren't an easy team to play and even when 2-0 down they didn't let up and created some problems. But we were solid and Pandev had a great game."

Roma's Mirko Vucinic scored the only goal of their game eight minutes from time as Claudio Ranieri's men took their recent run to 16 wins and three draws in their last 19.

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