Scott McTominay scored a double as the defending champions Napoli twice came from behind to secure a 2-2 draw with the Serie A leaders Inter at San Siro.
Inter came close to gaining revenge for their 3-1 defeat in Naples earlier this season and a win would have opened up a commanding gap at the top, but Napoli’s never-say-die attitude keeps them very much in the title race.
Inter move to 43 points, three ahead of the second-placed Milan, while Napoli are third in the standings on 39 points.
Following some early Napoli pressure Inter took the lead in the ninth minute after the visitors lost possession in the middle of the pitch. Marcus Thuram drove forward before laying off a pass to Federico Dimarco in the area who drilled his low shot into the far corner from a wide angle.
Inter began to press high up the pitch, with Napoli struggling to get out of their own half for long periods, but out of nowhere the away side drew level in the 26th minute. Leonardo Spinazzola’s pass sent Eljif Elmas into the area and his low cross into the six-yard box was met by McTominay, who got ahead of his marker Manuel Akanji at the near post to fire past Yann Sommer.
Thuram had a header tipped over by Vanja Milinkovic-Savic shortly before half-time and the sides went in level at the break.
Napoli had chances after the interval, with Milinkovic-Savic’s long clearance sending Rasmus Højlund through on goal but his shot went narrowly wide and Giovanni Di Lorenzo headed well off target from a Spinazzola cross.
The visitors were left ruing those misses when Inter were awarded a penalty for Amir Rrahmani’s foul on Henrikh Mkhitaryan with the Napoli manager, Antonio Conte, shown a red card for his furious reaction to the referee’s decision.
Hakan Calhanoglu blasted his spot-kick in off the upright and Inter retook the lead with 17 minutes remaining. Napoli, however, refused to bow and McTominay again equalised with nine minutes left.
Matteo Politano’s floated cross into the box looked like going out of play but Noa Lang hooked the ball back from the byline for McTominay to volley home from the edge of the six-yard box.
Mkhitaryan had an added-time deflected shot come back off the post and Inter were denied their seventh successive league win.
Christopher Nkunku scored in the 90th minute to earn Milan a 1-1 draw at Fiorentina on Sunday but, despite extending their unbeaten league run, the visitors continue to lose ground in the Serie A title race with their second stalemate in four days.
The Milan manager, Massimiliano Allegri, told Dazn: “We have to return to winning ways, there are a lot of points still to play for.”
Milan’s only league defeat this season came on the opening day and after struggling once more against a relegation-battling side – they also came from behind on Thursday in their 1-1 draw with Genoa – have gone 18 matches without defeat.
Allegri left Luka Modric, Rafael Leão and Adrien Rabiot on the bench, giving Niclas Füllkrug and Ardon Jashari their first league starts, with Füllkrug and Christian Pulisic looking very comfortable together up front. The pair played a neat one-two which launched Pulisic through on goal once more, this time going around David de Gea but taking the ball too far wide and his finish ended up in the side netting.
“We played a good first half, we had chances to score but didn’t take them,” Allegri said. “In the second half Fiorentina pushed a bit more.”
Fiorentina began brightly after the break, Dodo’s deflected shot looping over the bar and Mike Maignan gathering Robin Gosens’s header from the resulting corner.
Fiorentina hit the front in the 66th minute from a corner, Pietro Comuzzo rising unchallenged and his glancing header finding the net off the far post. The hosts had failed to win in their opening 15 league games but have shown signs of recovery of late and came close to a third successive home win.
Nkunku, on as a substitute, timed his run to get on the end of Youssouf Fofana’s ball and fired past De Gea from a wide angle.
Bayern Munich, helped by two record-breaking own goals and two from Michael Olise, demolished Wolfsburg 8-1 to extend their lead at the top, as the Bundesliga resumed from its winter break.
The reigning champions, who are on 44 points, 11 ahead of second-placed Borussia Dortmund, took a fifth-minute lead when Luis Díaz’s cutback was turned in by Kilian Fischer for an own goal. It was the third consecutive league game that Wolfsburg had scored an own goal, setting a Bundesliga record.
The visitors reacted well, with Dzenan Pejcinovic finishing a fine passing move that split open the Bayern defence to level in the 13th minute.
Díaz then turned scorer on the half-hour, heading in an Olise cross for his ninth league goal of the campaign, to put the hosts back in front. Olise is the league’s best provider with nine assists so far.
The Frenchman then got on to the scoresheet with a curled shot to bag his eighth goal of the season before the hapless Wolfsburg notched up their fourth own goal in their past three league matches with Moritz Jenz putting the ball in the net from an Olise cutback.
The hosts, who also hit the post through Olise and added two more goals through Raphael Guerreiro and the Bundesliga’s leading scorer, Harry Kane, in a span of 80 seconds, have never lost at home against Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga, winning 27 of 29 matches and drawing two.
Olise crowned a superb performance in his 50th Bundesliga match for Bayern by scoring his second goal of the evening in the 76th minute before Leon Goretzka, on as a substitute, flicked the ball in from a tight angle late on to make it their biggest win against Wolfsburg.
“It’s not normal [for such a result], it’s not a given and we should not forget that,” Bayern’s head coach, Vincent Kompany, said. “The first half was really not easy. But I had the feeling that when they get a bit tired we’d create even more chances – and that’s exactly what happened in the second half.”