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Inter Milan settled back into the lead in Serie A, albeit a shared one with Lazio and Udinese, after winning comfortably 2-1 against Bologna. Bologna’s coach Daniele Arrigoni had hoped to repeat his team’s magnificent performance at the San Siro, where on the opening day of Serie A they had humiliated AC Milan with a 1-2 victory. It was not to be, though, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic opened the scoring with a magnificent goal. Brazilian Adriano sent a cross inwards, and, in what was almost a repeat of his famous goal scored for Sweden against Italy in the European Championships in 2004, Ibrahimovic flicked it in - back to the goal - with his heel.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjkCyz1LxaE

The second half opened with a (debatable) penalty for Inter, as Sergio Volpi committed what seemed to be an involuntary handball in the Bologna box. Adriano struck it home confidently to put Inter ahead 2-0. Things aren’t all rosey though for Mourinho, as his defence showed minutes later when a misunderstanding between Cordoba and Zanetti let Bologna’s greek defender Vangelis Moras through to beat Julio Cesar and narrow the gap to 2-1. 

Inter’s win was perfect timing, given that elsewhere Lazio lost momentum and drew 1-1 to a surprisingly upbeat Lecce. Lazio thus lose their advantage and are in joint position with Inter and Udinese - all with 13 points from 6 games.

In what is becoming a pattern, the other ‘big’ teams all had a bad weekend.

Juventus suffered a defeat at the hands of Palermo - with goals coming from ex-Juventus striker Fabbrizio Miccoli and Georgian striker Levan Mchelidze. Miccoli is having a great season so far, with five goals scored. He’s in second place in the top-goal-scorer listings (Lazio’s Mauro Zárate is ahead with 6). Miccoli is in stark contrast with his former strike-partner Amauri, who has suffered at Juventus thanks to a lack of decent play from the midfield.  Yesterday confirmed the problem facing Claudio Ranieri, as youngster Sebastian Giovinco failed to shine, and Juventus only goal came from a well-taken free kick from Alessandro Del Piero.  It was the first defeat for Juventus (and at home), but coupled with the three draws the team has had, it was enough to get fans heckling coach Claudio Ranieri.

AC Milan came crashing back down to earth after their Derby win last week. Ronaldinho, Shevchenko, Inzaghi, Pato, Kakà and co not only failed to score against Sardinians Cagliari - who are bottom of the table - but also came close to actually losing.  Presuming that Milan are serious contenders for the scudetto this year, then this draw will cost them dearly, missing an ideal opportunity to put away three points (which would have placed them just one point behind rivals Inter).

AS Roma had their third defeat of the season, in a disastrous away game against Siena. Without either Totti or Vucinic, Roma were never going to be at their best, but they failed to dominate the game in the first half, and went down 1-0 when Lichtenstien born striker Mario Frick put away a goal after a perfect set-up by ex-Middlesborough striker Massimo Maccarone. The second half saw things steadily deteriorate as a nervous Roma had both Philippe Mexes and Christian Panucci picking up double yellows. In the first half good chances were squandered by Perotta and Taddei. Down to nine men in the second half, it was never likely that Roma would come back. Now Spaletti will be missing both Mexes and Panucci for his next match, Roma vs Inter. It couldn’t have come at a worse moment.

Fiorentina found form again, after their 0-0 draw against Steaua in the Champions League, with a 2-0 win against Chievo. Goals coming from Swiss/Serbian Zdravko Kuzmanović and the increasingly dependable Alberto Gilardino. 

Elsewhere Napoli and Genoa battled out a thrilling and aggressive match. Genoa came out of it better with a 3-2 win, helped somewhat along the way by a number of refereeing decisions that left most commentators perplexed.  Napoli opened the scoring just one minute into the match, with a goal from the dynamic  Ezequiel Lavezzi (his first of the season).  Genoa responded well though, and scored the next three goals (  Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Raffaele Palladino, and finally Diego Milito with his fifth goal of the season). The match was hard fought, with Napoli’s  Germán Denis scoring at the half-hour mark in the second half.

Lazio continued their brilliant start to the season  - albeit including a hammering from Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan along the way - with a 3-1 win over Torino. Goals by Aregntine Mauro Zarate(2) and Goran Pandev helped Lazio back to pole position in Serie A on Day 5. The roman team has scored an impressive 13 goals in five matches, compared to a tepid 7 goals for Inter Milan,6 for Napoli, 5 for AC Milan, or 4 for both Juventus and Fiorentina. 

The big result of the day five was AC Milan’s win in the derby against Inter, with a reasonable debut goal for Ronaldinho. It will certainly have picked up morale in the Milan camp - their third succesive win after a poor start to the season.  There’ll be plenty of non-Milan fans happy with the result, as it’s widely percieved as a dressing down for Jose Mourinho who has dominated the media here since taking on Inter Milan.

Roma put a useful 2-0 win under their belts against Atalanta with goals scored by Christian Panucci and Mirko Vucinic (his first of the season in Serie A). The team has been crippled by injury problems, still missing talismanic Captain Francesco Totti, but their new signings like John Arne Riise have failed, thus far, to impress. Wednesday night’s match against Bordeaux will be an important challenge for the team.

Fiorentina who have had their own problems put in a 1-0 win against Genoa with a beautiful goal from Alberto Gilardino (but nothing from Adriano Mutu, who’s had just one goal so far). It’ll presumably give them some confidence going into their Champions League clash on Tuesday night with Steaua Bucarest.

Meanwhile Napoli beat an admittedly weak Bologna (already in the relegation zone, despite their show-stealing win against Milan on day 1), bringing themselves into tied second position along with North Italian club Udinese. Napoli have a strong striking team in  Marek Hamšyk (4 goals so far) and Marcelo Danubio Zalayeta, but it was new signing Germán Denis the argentine forward who headed home the winner in Bologna’s Dall’Ara stadium yesterday.

Finally, it’s worth paying special attention to Fabrizio Miccoli, author of perhaps the best goal of the day to give Palermo victory over Reggina. Miccoli, who paired up with Amauri in last season’s Palermo line-up, has thus far scored 4 goals putting him in tied second place in the top scorer stakes, along with Lazio’s Goran Pandev and Genoa’s Diego Milito - at the top is Lazio’s Mauro Zárate.

For teams facing Roma the lessons of the first two games couldn’t be clearer: keep the pressure on, and the rewards will come.

Last week against Napoli Roma went ahead in the first half, but failed to capitalise on their lead and ended up conceding a draw at home. This evening things went considerably worse for Spalletti’s team. They started well - something for which they’re not particularly well noted - scoring within the first ten minutes, a goal from Júlio  Baptista. Then progressively, thanks to determination and spirit from Davide Ballardini’s Palermo saw Roma lose in the end 3-1.

The initial equaliser came from Fabrizio Miccoli (former Juventus, Fiorentina, and Benfica striker), and Roma were lucky not to go down in the first half. The second half was dull to start with, but after 11 minutes it was Miccoli again who put the Sicilian side ahead. A third goal, by Cavani towards the half-hour mark of the second half sealed things as Roma looked increasingly bewildered.

Without taking anything away from Palermo’s wonderful performance, one has to wonder whether Champions League worries intruded too much in Spalletti’s thinking for this match - leaving Vucinic on the bench, for example.