Serie A relegation battle gets intense

SERGEJ Milinkovic-Savic scored two superb goals to help Lazio move two places up to third in the Serie A after a 3-0 win at Sassuolo while the relegation scrap intensified with two of the bottom three winning yesterday.

Second-placed champions Juventus, who are a point behind leaders Napoli, had their home game against Atalanta called off due to a snowstorm, with the pitch in their Allianz Stadium unplayable minutes before kick-off.

Roma hosted AC Milan late last night while Napoli are away to lowly Cagliari tonight.

Midfielder Mattia Valoti also netted a brace as secondbottom Hellas Verona beat Torino 2-1 and 18th-placed SPAL 2013 won 3-2 at Crotone, who are 17th only one point above them.

An early Cristiano Biraghi piledriver from 25 metres gave Fiorentina a 1-0 home win over Chievo Verona while Sampdoria edged visiting Udinese 2-1 with the home team’s hitman Duvan Zapata scoring after a spectacular solo run.

Serbia midfielder Milinkovic-Savic, who is reportedly being sized up by several European giants, fired Lazio ahead with a rasping shot from 25 metres and headed home the third after striker Ciro Immobile made it 2-0 with a penalty.

Top scorer Immobile scored his 23rd league goal of the season with the spot kick awarded for handball after match officials had consulted the video assistant referee (VAR) amid furious protests by the home side.

Valoti scored a pair of opportunist goals for Hellas Verona, nodding in the opener and sweeping home a late winner with a rebound from 10 metres to cancel out Mbaye Niang’s neat equaliser for Torino.

Colombia striker Zapata started a dazzling run deep in his own half and beat three defenders before scoring with a sublime lob from 15 metres as Sampdoria kept alive their remote hopes of finishing in the top four.

Centreback Matias Silvestre fired Sampdoria ahead and scored a late own goal to set up a tense finish after Zapata’s stunner had given the home side a two-goal advantage.

SPAL reinvigorated their hopes of staying in the top flight with a fine performance which scrapped Ante Budimir’s two goals for Crotone, who may well end up ruing defeat in the basement dogfight.

Meanwhile, Olympique Lyonnais were denied their first Ligue 1 win in over a month when St Etienne’s Mathieu Debuchy scored a lastgasp goal to secure a 1-1 away draw in France’s hottest derby yesterday.

French international Debuchy struck one minute into stoppage time to cancel out Mariano Diaz’s first-half opener. The result left Lyon, who are now on a five-match winless streak, in fourth place with 50 points from 27 games.

Lyon scored after 20 minutes when Diaz volleyed home from close range but they ran out of steam and St Etienne came back into the game.

Debuchy scored to secure a point for the visitors.