(Football news) AC Milan produced a convincing performance against Venezia as they won 3-0. With this victory AC Milan momentarily went to the top of the table as they are now just a point behind their city rivals Inter. In the first half Zlatan Ibrahimovic tapped in after two minutes, as it was subsequently the 80th team the Swede has scored against in Europe's top five leagues, a record only Cristiano Ronaldo has matched since 2000. The story of the second half was the same as Hernandez blasted home an early goal in the second half, before Venezia defender Michael Svoboda was sent off for blocking a goal-bound shot with his arm, giving Milan's stand-in captain his second goal of the night from the penalty spot.
Stefan Pioli after the match said, "This must be the year we prove ourselves. We need to show that we are competitive again. We will see if we can make the final step up, to be winners. This was not an easy game. We did well to make it look simple. It was a team victory."
Inter after not playing mid week did not show any signs of stopping as they won 2-1 against Maurizo Sarri’s Lazio. Inter defender Alessandro Bastoni stepped up big time as he scored one goal and set up another in a very important victory at the San Siro. The reigning champions reclaimed their first place in Serie A with their eighth consecutive league win. The Italian international Bastoni fired home a superb long-range opener after half an hour, but Lazio captain Ciro Immobile soon equalised. In the second half, Milan Skriniar headed home the winner in the 67th minute after a perfect cross from Bastoni, which gave Simone Inzaghi his first victory over his former club.
Inter are top with 49 points, one ahead of AC Milan with a game in hand, while Lazio are eighth with 32 points. We have the league winners' badge on our chest and we want to defend it at all costs. In the last two years we have created a winning mentality, we want to continue like this." Bastoni after the match said
Juventus won a thrilling 4-3 encounter against Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma as this was probably the match of the season till now. In the first half Tammy Abraham scored for Roma to put them in front as Paulo Dybala made it 1-1 going into the half time break, but early goals from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lorenzo Pellegrini put Roma in charge of the second half. Juventus had different ideas as they fought back with two goals in two minutes from Manuel Locatelli and Dejan Kulusevski as Mattia De Sciglio fired home a fourth in the 77th minute to complete the extraordinary comeback. Roma were awarded a penalty after Matthijs de Ligt was shown a second yellow for handball with nine minutes remaining, but Szczesny saved Pellegrini's penalty which left the home fans stunned and disappointed to not show anything for their good performance. With this result Juventus moved up to 38 points in fifth place in the Serie A standings, six points ahead of eighth-placed Roma.
A disappointed Mourinho after the game said, “We were in complete control for 70 minutes.The team played really well and had the mentality of taking control, we came out and started strong. We had this idea of the high press, of controlling the tempo and taking the initiative.It was so good for 70 minutes, then there was this psychological collapse. The 3-2 killed us, because Felix [Afena-Gyan] had an extraordinary game, which finished with a sprint against [Juan] Cuadrado. I take him off and his replacement [Eldor Shomurodov] gets it all wrong.
“When we allowed them back in for 3-2, a team with a strong mentality like Juventus, a strong character, the fear set in. A psychological complex. It’s not a problem for me having 3-2, it’s a problem for them. For my team.
He added by saying, “At the end of the day, when you’re in the s**t, you get back on your feet and find your character. But there are people in this locker room who are a bit too nice, a bit too weak. I already told the players, if the game had ended at the 70th minute, it would’ve been an extraordinary performance. Unfortunately, it didn’t end then.”
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The other results were:
- Napoli 1 (Petagna) – 0 Sampdoria
- Udinese 2 (Djimsiti(og), Beto) – 6 Atalanta (Pasalic, Muriel x2, Malinovskyi, Maehle,Pessina)
- Genoa 0 – 1 Spezia (Bastoni)
- Empoli 1 (Henderson) – 5 Sassuolo (Berardi(pen), Raspadori x2, Scamacca x2)
- Verona 1 (Lazovic) – Salernitana 2 (Duric(pen), Kastanos)
