Higuain breaks 100-goal barrier

MILAN: Gonzalo Higuain scored a brace to bring his tally of Serie A goals to 101 as Juventus went top of the Italian league with a 2-0 win that plunged AC Milan further into crisis on Saturday.

Higuain opened after 23 minutes in front of a capacity 80,000 crowd at Milan’s San Siro Stadium and grabbed a second on 63 minutes for the six-time reigning champions.

It put Juventus provisionally top with 28 points from 11 games just ahead of Napoli on goal difference.

Napoli could reclaim top spot at Sassuolo in a late match yesterday with Inter Milan, who are just two points behind the leaders, visit Verona today.

“Playing at the San Siro is never easy and Milan are historic rivals. In these fixtures, form is wiped out,” said coach Massimiliano Allegri. “It sets us up nicely for the Champions League on Tuesday.”

For Higuain the century of goals in Italy — after achieving the same in Spain — was revenge for his disallowed effort during the week. “When they disallowed the goal against SPAL, we said it was my destiny to score the 100th at San Siro! Now it’s 101, not bad,” said the Argentine.

However, the future looks increasingly bleak for Milan coach Vincenzo Montella whose side are eighth, 12 points behind the leaders, and far below their objective of Champions League football next season.

“We went close to the goal several times, but there are few Higuains out there and not everybody has someone like him,” complained Montella who had looked to have stopped the rot with a midweek win at Chievo.

AS Roma took all three points at Bologna thanks to a Stephan El Shaarawy volley, to stay fifth.

It was a family affair as Roma coach Eusebio Di Francesco’s son Federico plays as a winger for Bologna. But it was El Shaarawy who broke through after 33 minutes off an Alessandro Florenz corner.

Juventus travel to Sporting Lisbon in Champions League this week with Roma hosting Chelsea.