INTER MILAN warmed up for their Europa League return clash with Celtic with their third Serie A win in a row after Roberto Mancini handed a shock recall to former Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic following their sub row.
The volatile pair clashed at Parkhead in the first leg of the tie because Vidic appeared reluctant to go on as a late sub for captain Andrea Ranocchia and Celtic netted an injury time goal in the pulsating 3-3 draw with the defender still on the park.
But the former Manchester City boss and the Serbian stopper buried the hatchet ahead of last night's trip to Sardinia and Ranocchia was rested because of that knock he picked up in Glasgow.
Inter's win last night propelled them up Serie A - it was also the first time they had won three league games in a row for three years - but they were fortunate winners after a strong fightback from Gianfranco Zola's men.
They opened the scoring at the start of the second half after a fine Mateo Kovacic strike, but had to soak up plenty of home pressure until Mauro Icardi netted a wonderful solo strike to give them a morale-boosting win ahead of the visit by the Scots, despite losing a late goal to an INTER player when on-loan Samuele Longo netted against his parent club.
Inter suffered a pre-match blow when keeper Samir Handanovic picked up an ankle injury, so Mariano Andujar deputised.
But the San Siro side almost got off to an excellent start when Fredy Gurain, who netted a double in Inter's last Serie A game at Atalanta, scissor-kicked a volley just wide.
Lukas Podolski, who isn't in Inter's European squad, blew a glorious chance to hand the Milan outfit a 20th minute lead when he went round two defenders and the keeper before being forced wide and he failed to even get a shot away.
The on-loan Arsenal striker is lacking in confidence now and Celtic should be disappointed he's not involved on Thursday after he nodded Davide Santon's perfect cross wide from point blank range. He also blew another great chance in the air after super work on the wing from Guarin.
Mauro Icardi and Marcelo Brozovic were then both denied by Cagliari keeper Zeljko Brkic, who is loan from Udinese as the visitors continued to dominate in the first half.
However, Inter's fragile defence was exposed against in a rare home attack and Santon had to boot the ball off his own line from a close range Duje Cop effort.
But they finally grabbed a deserved breakthrough 90 seconds after the restart. A lobbed ball from Podolski wasn't controlled properly by Icardi, but the ball sat up perfectly for Kovacic, who rattled in the opener from close range.
However, the Sardinians improved hugely and Vidic and co. didn't look too clever when Andrea Cossu blazed over when he should have equalised.
Suddenly, Mancini's men looked extremely vulnerable and Longo missed a great opportunity.
But with Inter on the ropes, their top scorer Icardi netted his 14th goal of the season - joint top scorer in Italy with Carlos Tevez - with a wonderfully composed finish with 22 minutes left.
Longo did make amends when he pulled a goal back with a fine finish and Inter defender Hugo Campagnaro was only shown a yellow card for a wild challenge on Paul-Jose M'Poku where he was so high he booted him on the head!
But Inter held on for the remaining 15 minutes despite sustained pressure.
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