Olivier Giroud on Sunday struck a huge blow for AC Milan in the Serie A title race with the only goal in a 1-0 win at SSC Napoli which fired his team top of the pile.
Veteran forward Giroud diverted home a wayward shot three minutes after halftime at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona to put Milan two points clear of city rivals Inter.
Reigning champions Inter, who have a game in hand, had claimed top spot on Friday with a 5-0 thumping of US Salernitana 1919, but now sit second, a point ahead of Napoli.
Photo: AFP
The Frenchman’s eighth league goal of the season was his first away from the San Siro since signing from Chelsea in the summer last year and came on an eventful night for the 35-year-old.
“I always try to do my job when I’m in the area, to be in the right place at the right time,” Giroud told DAZN. “I don’t want to talk about the scudetto right now, but we’re hoping to win something this year. We’re ambitious and we’ll fight to the end.”
It looked as though Giroud would not finish the match midway through the first half when he was flattened by Kalidou Koulibaly and was down for more than two minutes as medical staff tried to patch up a bleeding gash above his ankle.
Giroud then clattered into David Ospina seven minutes before halftime, leaving the Napoli goalkeeper worryingly prone on the grass before he eventually got up and carried on.
A recovered Ospina did well to tip aside Ismael Bennacer’s low drive just before the hour mark, while Theo Hernandez and Alexis Saelemaekers could have extended the margin of victory late on in a hugely impressive display which underlines Milan’s title credentials.
It came after two deeply disappointing draws with bottom side Salernitana and Udinese, which had allowed Napoli to lead the league on goal-difference heading into the weekend’s matches.
Luciano Spalletti’s team were the league’s form team this calendar year, but failed to ignite despite having an almost full-strength lineup and a big crowd backing them.
“Today was a big opportunity for us which we wasted, but we can’t cry about it because there are lots of games to go,” disappointed Napoli captain Lorenzo Insigne said. “If we play again like we did tonight no one here will remember us.”
In Turin, Alvaro Morata scored for the first time since mid-January with 20 minutes on the clock at the Allianz Stadium to defeat Spezia and keep Juventus in the race.
Juve are fourth, seven points behind Milan, and are applying pressure thanks to a run of 14 league matches without defeat stretching back to the end of November last year.
Coach Massimiliano Allegri has repeatedly said that Juve are not in the title race and Morata was equally evasive when asked about his team’s ambitions for the season.
“I’m of my own opinion, which is to think about the next training session and the next match. We can’t think about it too much,” Morata told DAZN.
Sunday’s was a far from accomplished performance from a team missing a host of players, including Paulo Dybala, Weston McKennie, Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Denis Zakaria.
Spezia were excellent in the second half and had two great chances to level, with Emmanuel Gyasi heading a huge opportunity straight at Wojciech Szczesny five minutes after the break and the Poland goalkeeper at his best to stop Kevin Agudelo with 10 minutes remaining.
Domenico Berardi continued his impressive season for 10th-placed US Sassuolo with a brace of penalties in a 4-1 win at struggling Venezia, who sit three points from safety.
Berardi has scored 12 times this season and is also in double figures for assists in the best campaign of his career.
Krzysztof Piatek scored his sixth ACF Fiorentina goal since arriving in January in a 1-1 home draw with Hellas Verona.
Sunday’s other two matches — Genoa versus Empoli and Bologna versus Torino — both finished goalless.
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