Inter held

Inter Milan remain on course for a place in the last 16 of the Champions League despite being held to a disappointing 1-1 draw against Group B rivals Lokomotiv Moscow here on Wednesday.

Uruguayan international Alvaro Recoba gave the Italians an early lead with a fierce left-foot shot, but the visitors salvaged a point when Dmitry Loskov's shot took a wicked deflection off Marco Materazzi to wrongfoot Francesco Toldo in the Inter goal.

Loskov's strike was Lokomotiv's first away goal in Europe since their 2-2 at Real Madrid in December last year.

Inter, who crashed to a 3-0 defeat in the away leg in Russia a fortnight ago, stay top of their group on seven points, one ahead of Ukranians Dynamo Kiev who lost 1-0 at Arsenal.

Lokomotiv are third on five points while Arsenal are bottom with four.

Inter looked nervous in the opening exchanges and almost fell behind in the ninth minute. A low left-wing corner caused panic in the home defence and the ball ran kindly for Vadim Evseev only for the Lokomotiv right-back to completely mishit his shot from a couple of yards out.

Yuri Syomin's side were to rue that miss five minutes later when Inter took the lead. Cristiano played a neat pass for Christian Vieri whose dummy completely fooled his marker and gave Recoba a clear sight of goal. The tricky South American moved the ball from roght foot to left and shot high into the net beyond Sergey Ovchinnikov.

Inter should have increased their advantage eight minutes later, but Vieri fired wildly over the bar after Kily Gonzalez had teed up the 30-year-old Italy international with a clever cutback from the byline.

Lokomotiv enjoyed plenty of possession without hurting the Italians in the final third, with central defender Fabio Cannavaro in imperious form at the heart of the Inter defence.

Danieli Adani saw a close-range header strike the post five minutes after the break before Lokomotiv silenced the vast majority of the San Siro crowd by drawing level.

Loskov struck a low left foot shot which was heading straight at Inter goalkeeper Francesco Toldo only for the ball to clip Marco Materazzi's heel and divert into the far corner.

The equaliser rocked Inter and they nearly conceded another moments later when Loskov, with only Toldo to beat, delayed his shot and allowed Javier Zanetti to nick the ball off his toe.

Vieri was thwarted by a brilliant one-handed save from Ovchinnikov as Inter regained the momentum before Gonzalez wasted a glorious opportunity by taking too long to shoot after breaking the offside-trap, giving Oleg Pashinin the time to intercept with a sliding tackle.

Inter finished the match strongly but failed to breach a watertight Lokomotiv defence which has conceded just three goals in four matches.