Inter Milan captain Lautaro Martinez is back to chasing the Serie A goal record of Ciro Immobile and Gonzalo Higuain.
Today’s print edition of Turin-based newspaper Tuttosport, via FCInterNews, highlight how the Argentine’s brace against Lecce could have him back in the hunt.
Martinez scored twice to help Inter to beat Lecce yesterday.
The two goals were the Nerazzurri captain’s 21st and 22nd of the season.
This means that Martinez is seven points clear of Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic at the top of the Serie A goalscoring charts. He is certainly well on track to finish as the top scorer in the league for the season.
But it’s not just rivals this season who Martinez has in his sights.
The 26-year-old could also be aiming for the history books.
Lautaro Martinez Has Immobile & Higuain Records In Sight After Lecce Brace
Currently, the highest number of goals scored by a player in a single Serie A player is 36.
Martinez’s fellow Argentine Higuain managed this with Napoli during the 2015-16 season.
Then, just a few seasons later, Italian international Immobile equalled this total with Lazio.
And that is the benchmark for any striker in prolific form.
That certainly describes Martinez this season. The Argentine has been scoring freely since the start of the campaign.
At one point, Martinez had even looked on pace to equal – or even exceed- the totals of Higuain and Immboile.
However, the last couple months have seen that pace drop off slightly.
Martinez still scores plenty of goals. But missing a couple of matches at the end of December through injury did not help the Inter captain’s case.
And then, Martinez failed to find the back of the net against either Juventus or Roma – in the latter case, in a match where Inter scored four goals.
But Martinez got back on the scoresheet against Salernitana.
And then yesterday, two goals brought the 26-year-old right back on track to hunt for the record.
Inter have thirteen matches left to play this season. And Martinez needs to score fourteen goals to equal Higuain and Immobile’s record – fifteen to break it outright.
That would mean that Martinez must score at a rate of more than one goal per match for the rest of the season.
This will be a difficult feat.
But less so after yesterday’s brace from the Inter captain.