Spezia

The Spain striker struck just after the hour mark before Federico Chiesa's improvised finish and a late Cristiano Ronaldo strike secured an important three points for the Serie A champions.

Having been held to a draw by Hellas Verona last time out, this was an important match for Andrea Pirlo's men, although they looked far from their best in a frustrating first-half performance.

The introduction of Morata helped to turn the tide as Juve moved to within seven points of Inter and three of second-placed Milan, with Ronaldo's effort making the Portugal star the first player to score 20 goals in each of the past 12 seasons in Europe's top-five leagues.

Riccardo Marchizza nearly caught Juve cold seven minutes in, turning and shooting just wide of the left post following Diego Farias' pass.

There was little Juve threat to speak of until Ronaldo, making his 600th career league appearance, smashed a strike off the base of the post three minutes before the break.

The home side's best work was coming down the left, Weston McKennie almost capitalising on a loose backpass and Dejan Kulusevski sending over a cross that Ronaldo could not meet with conviction.

Spezia did not heed the warning and substitutes Federico Bernardeschi and Morata combined from that same position, the latter finishing at the near post and the goal awarded after a VAR review.

With Morata keeping the Spezia defence busy, Kulusevski found Chiesa in the box and, after his initial shot was saved, he expertly hooked in the rebound for 2-0.

Ronaldo was frustrated by goalkeeper Ivan Provedel from a free-kick but left the keeper with no chance, netting a crisp finish a minute from the end of normal time.

Wojciech Szczesny did not have a save to make until the final kick of the match, when he pushed away Andrej Galabinov's tame penalty to deny the visitors a consolation.

The Belgium international has scored just four goals for the Nerazzurri since returning on loan from Chelsea last June.

Two of those have come in his last four appearances - including the winner in the first leg of Inter's Champions League last-16 tie with Porto.

The striker is just one goal away from becoming only the fourth player to score 50 times in Serie A and the Premier League, after Gianfranco Zola, Edin Dzeko and Cristiano Ronaldo.

"We know his value, he came from a problematic period, and now he is giving excellent signals," Inzaghi said of Lukaku during his press conference ahead of Inter's clash with Spezia on Friday. 

"He trains in the best way every day, he scored an important goal against Porto, and we want him to continue to raise the condition."

Second-placed Inter will be expected to cut the gap to runaway leaders Napoli to 12 points with victory over their 17th-placed opponents, who are just three points clear of the relegation zone.

The Nerazzurri saw a six-match unbeaten run ended with defeat at Bologna, but Inzaghi was pleased with his side's response in their routine 2-0 victory over Lecce. 

"We reacted well by having an excellent game against Lecce," he added. "We must continue like this, with this determination, also from tomorrow.

"[It will be] a difficult game, against a team that has a very specific goal for which it is fighting.

"They come from two draws in a row. We will have to interpret the game in the best way, doing simple things."

Six players kept their places after Thursday's penalty shoot-out win over Rio Ave in the Europa League, and a lack of freshness was apparent in the first half, with Milan struggling to break down their less illustrious opponents. 

They looked sharper at the start of the second period, though, and duly went ahead shortly before the hour mark when Rafael Leao prodded home from close range. 

Theo Hernandez added a second in the 76th minute before Leao made sure of all three points with another predatory strike two minutes later, as Milan made it three wins from three.

After a largely dismal opening period, the game burst into life on the stroke of half-time. 

First, Alexis Saelemaekers blazed over from 15 yards after being teed up by Davide Calabria, while at the other end Gianluigi Donnarumma pawed away Daniele Verde's powerful strike. 

Milan belatedly woke from their slumber at the start of the second period and were rewarded with the opener 12 minutes after the resumption when Leao stole in at the back post to stab home Hakan Calhanoglu's teasing free-kick. 

Donnarumma made a smart stop from Kevin Agudelo before Hernandez doubled Milan's advantage, the French full-back racing forward from just inside the opposition half and drilling past Rafael from 15 yards. 

That knocked the stuffing out of Spezia and Milan added a third shortly after when Leao met Franck Kessie's headed knock-down with a simple finish inside the six-yard box to wrap up an ultimately routine win. 

Milan occupy top spot in their quest for a first Scudetto since 2011, but fierce rivals Inter are just two points behind and arguably have an easier set of fixtures to conclude the campaign.

Napoli and Juventus are not officially out of the title race just yet, though they are seven and eight points off first place respectively, therefore requiring a remarkable set of results.

Both Napoli and Juventus are already assured of a top-four finish, but there are several other teams still battling it out for the three remaining European spots.

Venezia appear doomed at the opposite end of the table after losing to fellow strugglers Salernitana on Thursday, with the latter's victory lifting them out of the bottom three – in all, six teams remain in trouble.

But just how will the remaining two and a half weeks of the season unfold? Using the Stats Perform League Prediction Model, we can try to forecast the final standings.

Created by Stats Perform AI using Opta data, the model has analysed the division to assign percentages to potential outcomes for each club.

The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) based on teams' attacking and defensive qualities, which considers four years' worth of results.

Weighting is based on recency and the quality of opposition, with the rest of the matches then simulated 10,000 times to calculate the likelihood of each outcome.

Let's take a look...

MILAN TO SEE THE JOB THROUGH

Milan still have Hellas Verona (ninth), Atalanta (eighth) and Sassuolo (11th) to face, whereas Inter's final fixtures are against Empoli (14th), Cagliari (18th) and Sampdoria (15th).

However, it is worth noting that if they finish level on points, Milan would be crowned champions by virtue of a superior head-to-read record against their rivals this term.

With that in mind, while Inter are only two points behind, they essentially need to take three more points than Milan over the final three matchdays.

And our model suggests the Rossoneri have a 62 per cent chance of retaining top spot, compared to a 37.7 per cent chance of defending champions Inter overtaking them.

Just to highlight how unlikely it is either Napoli or Juventus will pip the current top two to the summit, they have a 0.2 and 0.1 per cent chance of winning the title respectively.

A ROME ONE-TWO FOR EUROPA LEAGUE?

The Champions League places may now officially be wrapped up, but five teams are still battling it out for the three remaining European berths.

The sides that finish in fifth and sixth, currently occupied by Roma and Lazio, will qualify for the Europa League group stage.

Roma, according to the model, have a 59.1 per cent chance of nailing down fifth place – though if they were to drop to seventh, the Europa Conference League finalists could get into the Europa League by winning UEFA's third-tier competition.

Lazio would take great enjoyment from finishing above their neighbours and have a 36.9 per cent chance of doing so.

The first priority for Maurizio Sarri will be locking down sixth, though, and there is a 46.7 per cent likelihood of achieving that with Fiorentina three points further back.

ATALANTA TO PIP FIORENTINA

While the top six are forecast to remain where they are, our model predicts seventh-placed Fiorentina will miss out to Atalanta in the Europa Conference League play-off position.

After losing three games in a row, La Viola now have a 31.2 per cent chance of staying seventh, compared to 47.6 for Atalanta, whom they are currently level with on 56 points.

Verona are four points further back and that appears to be too big a gap to bridge, with the Gialloblu seemingly certain to remain in eighth.

Indeed, the 80.8 per cent likelihood of Verona finishing in that position is bettered only by the chances of Empoli staying 14th (90.2 per cent) and Venezia remaining bottom (87.4 per cent) given the points margin either side.

VENEZIA AND TWO OTHERS TO DESCEND

Thursday's 2-1 defeat away to Salernitana looks to have spelled the end for Venezia's brief stint back in the top flight as it leaves them seven points from safety. Their chances of escaping the drop sit at 0.1 per cent.

Salernitana still have a 36.2 per cent chance of dropping into the bottom three, but given they face the team directly below them – Cagliari – and Empoli in their next two games, they will surely like those odds.

Another win for Salernitana on Sunday would be massive at the bottom, as such a result will relegate Venezia and potentially Genoa, whom the model gives only a 1.2 per cent likelihood of climbing up to 17th.

Spezia and Sampdoria aren't quite out of the woods yet, but their five-point cushions should be enough to keep them in Serie A. Everything points to Sunday's contest being almost a straight relegation play-off between Salernitana and Cagliari.

The model suggests with a 63.3 per cent probability that Cagliari will go down, but their fate is in their own hands.

The Rossoneri were dismal at Stadio Alberto Picco and failed to register a single attempt on target in a league game for the first time since August 2019 as goals from Giulio Maggiore and Simone Bastoni sealed a famous 2-0 triumph for the hosts. 

It marked the first time Milan had lost a top-flight game to a newly-promoted side since they were defeated by Benevento in April 2018. 

The result means Inter – who Milan face next weekend – can leapfrog their rivals at the league summit if they overcome Lazio on Sunday.

Milan have now lost three times in the league this season and Pioli said this was the first reverse that was deserved. 

"It will be a valuable lesson for all of us; we realise that if we don't perform at a certain level, we will be embarrassed like this," he told DAZN.

"Spezia won deservedly. This is our first deserved defeat of the season as we did not have enough quality or intensity and our opponents quite rightly took advantage.

"We are not a team capable of really winning ugly. We always try to focus on passing, intensity and tempo, so if we lack those elements, we are not as effective.

"We struggled throughout the game, nothing worked, including my choices and the performances of the players. Obviously, this isn't what Milan are like, so we need to prove that from next week.

"Perhaps we weren't sharp enough to react to the difficulties that Spezia provided. We did expect them to be aggressive and had prepared counter-measures, but they didn't work and we made mistakes, so nothing went right.

"If we don't move the ball around quickly enough, we allow our opponents to get back into shape and become predictable. Nothing worked this evening, on the ball or off it."

Milan face Red Star Belgrade in the first leg of their Europa League round-of-32 tie on Thursday and Pioli is expecting a much improved performance from his side.

"We're well aware of how negative this performance was, just as we're well aware of the difficulty of the games coming up and well aware of what Milan are capable of," he added.

"Anyone who saw us in training this week would not have expected this performance, and yet it happened. It was an off night, we need to get back on track.

"This was a bad performance, it's only right we leave the field with our heads down, but from tomorrow we get back on our feet."

With this shock victory, Spezia have now picked up more Serie A points against sides currently in the top half of the table (13) than those they have earned against teams in the bottom half (11).

Milan fell behind 11 minutes into the second half when captain Maggiore opened his league account for the season from close range before Bastoni added a sumptuous second after 67 minutes. 

Stefano Pioli's side failed to register a single attempt on target as they slipped to their first Serie A away defeat since Atalanta beat them in December 2019. 

The result means Inter – who Milan face next Sunday – can leapfrog their rivals at the league summit if they overcome Lazio on Sunday.

Milan started sluggishly and would have fallen behind after 13 minutes had Gianluigi Donnarumma not superbly pawed over Riccardo Saponara's powerful close-range strike. 

Theo Hernandez and Alessio Romagnoli both headed wide before the half-hour mark as Milan belatedly woke from their slumber, although Pioli's side were unable to test Spezia goalkeeper Ivan Provedel before the interval – the first time they had failed to register a shot on target in the first half of an away game since September 2019. 

Spezia deservedly went ahead in the 56th minute when Maggiore slotted into an empty net after Romagnoli's last-ditch tackle on Matteo Ricci had diverted the ball into his path. 

A shellshocked Milan fell further behind 11 minutes later when Bastoni whipped home a glorious stike from 18 yards after Nahuel Estevez had rolled a free-kick back into his stride. 

Milan poured forward late on, but Spezia held on to record what is comfortably the most impressive win in their debut Serie A campaign.

Thursday's result at Stadio Alberto Picco made it 1-1 on aggregate, with Spezia moving up to the top flight due to their superior position in the table at the end of the regular season.

It completes a miraculous recovery for a club that was declared bankrupt following its relegation from Serie B in 2008 and return the next season in the fourth tier after being re-founded.

Andrea Beghetto hit the post for Frosinone in the 12th minute and Spezia goalkeeper Simone Scuffet made some good saves to keep the scores level at half-time.

Frosinone drew level on aggregate when Marcus Rohden added a fine finish after Andrija Novakovich and Camillo Ciano flicked on a long ball from keeper Francesco Bardi.

The visitors pushed for a winner but were unable to find a way through, with Spezia hanging on to secure a historic promotion.