Soccer-Stalemate at Genoa stretches Inter's winless run

GENOA, Italy (Reuters) - Inter Milan missed the chance to move level on points with Serie A leaders AC Milan at the top of the standings after they were held to a 0-0 draw at relegation-threatened Genoa on Friday, stretching the champions' winless league run to four games.

Inter had several opportunities to open the scoring in the first half, with Hakan Calhanoglu firing their best chance wide early on from a great position.

The champions seemed to run out of ideas in the second half as they struggled to create that killer opening, with Stefano Sturaro almost snatching a famous win for Genoa late on.

With leaders AC Milan having drawn 1-1 at home to Udinese earlier on Friday, Inter remain two points behind their rivals as they look to retain the Scudetto, having played one game less.

Genoa stay second bottom on 17 points from 27 games, five points from the safety zone after just one league win all season.

Inter coach Simone Inzaghi feels both title-chasing sides dropping points at this stage of the season is understandable.

"It's a strange thing, but in this moment of the season we are both starting to feel tired," Inzaghi told DAZN. "The result leaves a bad taste in our mouth, because we could not have approached this game better.

"We are trying to improve on a daily basis. We lack that spark that we were able to find before. We will return to winning ways soon but we must not lose our heads."

(Reporting by Peter Hall, editing by Pritha Sarkar)