Inter left the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara with a 1-3 win over Bologna, and the margin was built on a second-half that the hosts never found an answer to — three goals across 44 minutes of football that erased what had briefly looked like a promising afternoon for Raffaele Palladino's side.
Bologna midfielder Tommaso Pobega gave the home side the opener at 10', converting with an assist from midfielder Juan Miranda to put the Rossoblu ahead against the division's form team. For a side that had taken one win from their last five matches coming in, it was precisely the kind of start they needed. Inter, arriving at the Dall'Ara having dropped points only once in six Serie A outings, absorbed the setback without alarm. Inter forward Marcus Thuram levelled at 44', set up by Nicolo Barella, and the equalizer arrived at the worst possible moment for Bologna — on the stroke of half-time, stripping the home side of whatever psychological advantage the opener had earned them.
The decisive passage came at 69'. Inter brought on Carlos Augusto for Federico Dimarco and, within the same minute, Augusto had scored the lead-taking goal, assisted by Inter midfielder Piotr Zielinski. A substitute converting within moments of arriving is the kind of event that collapses a team's resistance, and Bologna — already carrying two yellow cards by that point in the match — had no coherent response. Augusto then turned provider: at 83', Inter forward Ange-Yoan Bonny, himself introduced at 58', finished with Augusto's assist to seal the result. Two substitutes combining for the third goal, both introduced in the second half, is a measure of the depth Cristian Chivu's Inter were able to call upon.
Bonny is the natural focus here. Introduced to replace Pio Esposito at 58' with the score still level, he contributed the goal that made the result safe — the 83' finish that gave Inter their two-goal cushion and removed any arithmetic hope Bologna retained. That a player brought on with the game in the balance could settle it so cleanly reflects the quality available across Chivu's squad, not merely in the starting eleven.
Bologna's difficulty was structural as much as tactical. Pobega, the scorer of their only goal, collected a yellow card at 57' and was substituted off at 76'; Miranda, who assisted the opener, was booked at 71'. The players who had created the early advantage were either cautioned or removed before the match was decided. The substitution at 30' — Jay Enem on for Roberto Piccoli — came early enough to suggest the first change was forced rather than tactical, though the data offers no stated reason. Four yellows and four substitutions tell the story of a team managing problems rather than pressing an advantage. Bologna had taken one win from their last five matches before kick-off; that record is unchanged across the same window after this defeat.
Inter's trajectory moves in the opposite direction. They arrived with 16 points from six matches, the only unbeaten side in the division's upper reaches, and they leave with a win that extends that record. Across their last five matches including this result, they have taken four wins and one draw — a consistency that makes the occasional dropped point look like a rounding error rather than a vulnerability. Bologna, collecting one win, two draws, and two defeats across their last five including Saturday, remain in a difficult stretch with no obvious sign of the run that would change their season's complexion.
Inter did not need to be at their best to win here. That is the most telling detail of the afternoon.