Champions Inter deny would-be title rivals Roma as Martínez haunts Gasperini | Nicky Bandini

Gian Piero Gasperini could not keep himself from smiling. His Roma team had just squandered a two-goal lead at home to Inter but as he crossed the Stadio Olimpico pitch to greet the man who had led the visitors’ comeback, his lips formed into a grin.

“He always scores against me”, he laughed when he was asked what he had said to Lautaro Martínez. “I told him to stop it! He does it to everyone, though. He’s a great champion, everyone thinks very highly of him, even if he makes all of us suffer.”

Related: Jonathan David scores an important goal that gives Atlético a win over 10-man Real Madrid in a tense and heated derby.

The game ended 2-2. Martínez scored twice in the second half, cancelling out two goals from Manu Koné. Gasperini's Roma side dropped two points, but they also gained one in the league standings and one against their rivals, their fans, and themselves. After winning their first four games, they had matched the champions and landed strong blows, even though they could not finish them off.

At the start of this second season under Gasperini, Roma look more than ever like a team in his image: taking the game to their opponents high up the pitch, engaging man-to-man and seeking opportunity from individual duels.

The risks were evident even in the moments leading up to Koné’s sixth-minute opener, with possession swapping rapidly and the Roma centre-back Leonardo Balerdi staying alert to intercept a through-ball from Yann Bisseck for Martínez. Roma reaped the rewards when Paulo Dybala’s cross was headed down by Nahuel Molina for Koné to sweep home.

Koné is not usually known for scoring goals. He scored twice in each of his first two seasons at Roma, but in this game he matched that total by the 37th minute. He reached the edge of the six-yard box and scored again from another pass by Dybala, this time after the ball was touched by Gianluca Mancini. The goal was first ruled out, but a video assistant referee review later confirmed that neither player was offside.

Roma had been playing better, but they also had some luck. Not long before Koné's second goal, Martínez missed an open goal from very close range, and Alessandro Bastoni hit the post from a tight angle. Roma did not learn from these warning signs. Less than a minute into the second half, Martínez passed the ball to Marcus Thuram on the left. Thuram passed it back, and the Argentinian ran through the middle to receive it. He then scored a brilliant goal into the bottom corner, shooting between three defenders.

Related: Zidane's next move as France coach may reveal the wizard behind the curtain | Jonathan Wilson

If Roma are building their identity in year two under Gasperini, then perhaps the same is happening at Inter under Cristian Chivu. Using our earlier boxing comparison, they are Serie A's version of Rocky Balboa: a team that can walk into a series of hard hits, sometimes without much caution, take all of them, and then hit back twice as hard.

This was the fourth game in a row that Inter had fallen 2-0 behind and the third of those in which they avoided a defeat. The champions overcame such deficits to beat Napoli and Udinese this month and might have done the same away to Real Madrid in the Champions League if it weren’t for some brilliant goalkeeping by Thibaut Courtois.

Here, Mile Svilar kept Inter at bay. Roma’s goalkeeper made a stunning reflex stop to keep out Thuram’s header at a corner, before Martínez nodded the rebound on to the bar, when Inter’s talisman finally equalised in the 79th minute.

Inter had created enough chances to deserve the draw. But things could have turned out differently. In the 68th minute, with the score at 2-1, Donyell Malen controlled a Dybala corner and turned to fire a powerful shot that hit Inter goalkeeper Josep Martínez in the face.

It was an exciting game to watch for anyone without a favorite team. Both sides could feel proud of parts of their performance, but also frustrated by other parts. Playing away from home, against one of the strongest teams competing for the title, Inter showed once again that they are tough and have strong players to call on. Having the best attacker in the league helps a lot.

Even so, it cannot be a good long-term plan to let opponents score two goals before you even get going. Reporters asked several Inter players why they keep starting games so badly. They all gave a similar answer: “I have no idea.” Chivu began his interview after the game on Dazn by saying: “I’m going to talk about the second half, because the things I had to say about the first will stay between me and the team.”

Roma have the opposite problem, repeatedly starting well only to allow opponents into games. All three times they have failed to keep a clean sheet this season – against Inter, Atalanta and Fenerbahce – they have conceded within three minutes of the second-half restart.

Gasperini had acknowledged the trend after Roma’s Champions League draw with the Turkish side, nodding to Agatha Christie with his joking assessment that “two coincidences are a proof”. What she wrote, of course, is three is the number required to meet that threshold. A number which has now been reached.

“We need to keep our focus on our own business,” he said when asked whether his team was ready to compete for the Scudetto. “We need to take this awareness that, in the right conditions, we can be a really good, dangerous, team.”

That they most certainly are. Malen might not have scored, but he has six goals already in this Serie A season – two more than Martínez – continuing the prolific form since joining from Aston Villa in January. Dybala has four assists and that does not include either goal against Inter, despite both being the result of his delivery.

Monza 2-1 Sassuolo, Venezia 0-2 Lazio, Roma 2-2 Internazionale, Udinese 0-1 Cagliari, Bologna 1-1 Torino, Milan 3-0 Lecce, Juventus 2-0 Atalanta, Parma 2-1 Genoa, Frosinone 2-0 Como, Fiorentina 1-1 Napoli

Gasperini's attack, built around those two players along with Matías Soulé, or the 19-year-old Rodrigo Mora, is becoming one of the most dangerous three-man attacks in Serie A. Meanwhile, the recovery speed of Balerdi, who was signed from Marseille, looks like a huge asset for a team that plays with such a high defensive line.

The question is whether this team has the depth to sustain a challenge to Inter – whose strength in that area was on display again. Chivu could bring Petar Sucic off the bench to replace a struggling Curtis Jones, as well as Carlos Augusto for Federico Dimarco. He kept Martínez and Thuram on until the 90th minute, in recognition of how well they were playing, but Francesco Pio Esposito and Ange-Yoan Bonny are extraordinarily strong late replacements.

Roma need to see more from Santiago Castro, their most expensive summer signing, as another attacking option. But after five games, Gasperini is still mostly positive. "We played Inter when they are in peak condition," he added. "Maybe, over the course of a season, it won't always be that way."

Perhaps one day Martínez will not score against him. Then again, perhaps he will. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Argentine has not lost in 17 games against teams coached by Gasperini. He has won 12 of those games and drawn five, scoring 11 goals in total.

But Martínez is only one part of the bigger picture. This September match between the defending champions and the team hoping to challenge them left us with more interesting questions than clear answers.

Pos Team P GD Pts 1 Roma 5 11 13 2 Inter Milan 5 7 13 3 Lazio 5 5 13 4 Cagliari 5 3 12 5 AC Milan 5 6 11 6 Frosinone 5 5 10 7 Juventus 5 4 10 8 Como 5 3 10 9 Napoli 5 1 7 10 Sassuolo 5 0 7 11 Atalanta 5 -2 6 12 Lecce 5 -5 6 13 Udinese 5 -3 4 14 Torino 5 -3 4 15 Parma 5 -3 4 16 Monza 5 -4 4 17 Fiorentina 5 -6 4 18 Bologna 5 -3 2 19 Genoa 5 -7 1 20 Venezia 5 -9 0