It now feels like a formality that Inter will win the league title this season and thus will hit their 20th Scudetto before AC Milan, given the gap that has opened up in the table.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes this morning, Milan are currently 13 points behind Inter but have done worse in the past, even under Stefano Pioli. In 2019-20, after 26 rounds of action, they had fallen 21 points behind Antonio Conte’s Inter and were third in the table.
That, however, was a Milan side in the process of being rebuilt. Pioli had taken over from Marco Giampaolo after just a few games was completing the first phase of his work, then Covid arrived to halt the season and afterwards there was a big upturn.
To find a huge gap between the Rossoneri and the league leaders Inter you need to go back 16 years: in 2007-08 the Nerazzurri were 18 points above their city rivals.
In the previous season, which ended with the most recent Champions League win for the Rossoneri in Athens, the gap was 22 points (with a game in hand for Milan).
In the era of three points for a win, only on one other occasion have the Devil been so far from first-placed Inter was in 2001-02 915 points).