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Barella struck in the 10th minute with Inter already ahead thanks to an own goal from Berat Djimsiti, and sent the home fans into wild celebration with the quality of his strike, a flying volley from outside the box.

The score remained 2-0 at the break but it was 3-0 soon after the restart when Thuram poked home the first of his two goals of the night. He grabbed his second in similar style as Atalanta failed to clear the danger, ensuring all three points for Inter, which appears to be so far as unstoppable this season as it was the last.

Inter was coming off a draw at Genoa and a 2-0 win over Lecce and moved top of the standings with seven points afte this victory.

The hosts opened the scoring when Thuram's low cross deflected off Djimsiti into his own net before Barella's briliance doubled the lead seven minutes later.

Inter could have had a third just before the half-hour mark too, with Thuram ghosting past Atalanta's defence again, only to see this effort deflected off the woodwork.

Thuram scored twice in similar fashion after the break, taking advantage of loose balls from the visitors' poor defence to fire home from close range in the 47th and 56th minutes.

Atalanta posed little threat and can count itself lucky not to be on the end of a heavier scoreline as Federico Dimarco's sweeping finish was disallowed for offside late on.

While Barella arguably scored the pick of the goals with his long-range stunner, Thuram was at the heart and centre of everything Inter did.

He had the most shots – four – and netted with both of his efforts on target, outperforming his 0.49 expected goals.

Thuram is now the fourth Inter player to score at least four goals in his first three appearances in a Serie A season in the three-points-for-a-win era, after Lautaro Martínez (five in 2023-2024), Mauro Icardi (five in 2017-2018) and Christian Vieri (four in 1999-2000 and 2002-2003).