Inter v Udinese – Serie A result as champions recover from two down to cruise to fourth straight victory but lose John Stones to injury

For the second successive Serie A match, Inter recovered from a two-goal deficit to gain victory, this time over Udinese at the San Siro, with the only sour note being John Stones coming off injured.

It was not as dramatic as last week when Lautaro Martinez scored an injury-time winner against Napoli, with the hosts on this occasion having the game in their favour by the hour mark and ending up cruising to a fourth win on the spin.

The surprise source for the first goal was Ireland's James Abankwah who leapt highest to head home Unai Gomez's cross and then Keinan Davis set up Jurgen Ekkelenkamp to squeeze a shot through Josep Martinez's legs to put the champions two behind within 16 minutes.

Carlos Augusto's thunderbolt got The Nerazzurri back on track and then Nicolo Barella's effervescent desire gained his side an equaliser.

The second half was one-way traffic and Inter got reward when Andy Diouf pulled back for Marcus Thuram to score, with Francesco Pio Esposito netting another after slick interplay in the area involving Curtis Jones.

The match ended less happily for fellow England international, Stones, who tried in vain to keep pace with Davis' sprint in the second half, before sitting down on the turf and limping off with an apparent leg injury.

Substitute Ange Bonny showed fine goalscoring instincts for a fifth goal before Idrissa Gueye got an injury-time consolation, with the result leaving Inter second in the table behind AS Roma on goal difference.

Bayo chested Lovric's deep cross and it ended up falling into the path of fellow substitute Gueye who slid an effort past Martinez inside the goalkeeper's left-hand post.

Pretty poor play from the Udinese wall as Stankovic's free kick squeezes between them and brushes the outside of the post.

But it is easy for Martinez to stop.

But Ebosse gets there to push the ball behind with Esposito ready to pounce.

The former Napoli man has had a fine game.

But Martinez saves well diving to his right.

Davis is brought off for Bayo with Lovric coming on for Ekkelenkamp.

The Inter subs have only increased their desire to keep scoring. After Dimarco's low cross caused havoc in the box, the ball was deflected to Bonny and though Okoye saved his first effort with his legs, the striker was lightning quick to snaffle the rebound.

And it might have snuck into the bottom right hand corner had it not get a little deflection off an Udinese leg.

Bertola and Chakvetadze come on for Miller and Vojvoda.

Thuram gets deserved applause as he comes off. Bonny replaces him, with Dimarco coming on for Bastoni.

Lovely interplay around the box, ends with Esposito passing to Jones, who squares to Zielinski and his short pass sees the striker turn and fire into the net leaving the goalkeeper with no chance.

Curtis Jones comes on for Mkhitaryan.

It will be a watch to see what this injury is for Stones, given it has been a long time since he played many games in a league season.

But he cannot find team-mate Ekkelenkamp in the middle. The former Villa forward really exposed Stones' lack of pace there. And trying to catch him looks to have seen the England international injure himself.

It was coming. Diouf is all alone on the right flank and gets to the by-line before pulling back to Thuram, who slides the ball inside the far post.

They really are struggling to keep the ball more than 30 yards from their own goal. A number of last-ditch tackles stop Inter shots before Mkhitaryan shoots over from 30 yards.

This time he aims a header at goal, but Okoye saves comfortably.