INTER Milan’s troublesome Europa League campaign worsened with a 3-1 defeat to Sparta Prague.
Saints face the Serie A giants in their next Group K match at the San Siro next month, with Frank De Boer’s side yet to tally a point after two group stage games.
With around £100m worth of talent left out of the squad due to financial fair play, Inter's weakened side were defeated for a second successive match, edging them towards what would be a catastrophic elimination from the Europa League for one of Europe’s most illustrious clubs.
After losing 2-0 to Hapoel Be’er Sheva in their opening group match, Vaclav Kadlec opened the scoring on seven minutes for Sparta.
The Czech outfit, who Saints easily beat 3-0 two weeks ago in their opening group match at St Mary’s, were then two up as Kadlec struck again on 25 minutes after a cleverly worked free-kick.
Rodrigo Palacio found Inter a foothold in the game on 71 minutes to make it 2-1, but, four minutes later, Andrea Ranocchia was shown a red card for a second bookable offence, meaning the visitors had to finish the game a man down.
Mario Holek then buried the Italians with another Sparta goal just moments after they went down to ten men.
Inter now sit bottom of Group K ahead of Saints’ visit on October 20.
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