AC Milan are now only five points behind leaders
Juventus, held 1-1 at Sassuolo on Saturday, while Roma put three
unanswered goals past Chievo to reinforce their grip on second spot and
reduce their deficit to a point.
Milan: Japan international Keisuke
Honda struck a brace in a 3-1 win at Verona to go top of the Serie A
scoring charts on Sunday as AC Milan moved up to fourth.
Milan
travelled to the Bentegodi stadium looking for their second successive
win having accounted for another Verona-based side, Chievo, two weeks
ago.
The visitors were missing injured French forward Jeremy Menez, but Honda was in scintillating form.
"He's
the consummate professional and a great player, I already said that
back in August," Milan coach Filippo Inzaghi told Sky Sport Italia.
"He rarely misses a scoring chance and deserves all the credit he gets."
Inzaghi
added: "We're happy, these were three really important points, but we
still have
improvements to make especially in defence."
Milan were
given a helping hand in the 21st minute when Brazilian Rafael Marques,
one half of a centre-back pairing which also included Mexican
international Rafa Marquez, skewed a volley into his own net from
Ignazio Abate's cross from the right.
"It can happen to anyone," said Verona coach Andrea Mandorlini.
Milan
were 2-0 up six minutes later when Stephan El Shaarawy, given a rare
start on the left of a three-man forward line spearheaded by Spaniard
Fernando Torres, found Honda in space on the right with a long ball from
midfield.
Honda had time to run unmarked towards goal before curling a first-time shot past Verona 'keeper Rafael.
Verona
striker Luca Toni came close to reducing the arrears with an acrobatic
effort minutes later but Christian Abbiati pulled off a remarkable save
to parry at his near post.
Abbiati was at full stretch again just after the half hour to push away Bosko Jankovic's header.
If
Verona's defence had been conspicuously absent at Honda's first goal,
they were even more so 10 minutes after the restart when the Japan
international was left in acres of space.
French defender Adil
Rami fired a low pass from just over the halfway line and Honda ran in
practically unhindered to dink another left-footed shot over Rafael.
Verona grabbed a late consolation when Nico Lopez powered past Sulley Muntari before cutting in to beat Abbiati.
Milan
are now only five points behind leaders Juventus, held 1-1 at Sassuolo
on Saturday, while Roma put three unanswered goals past Chievo to
reinforce their grip on second spot and reduce their deficit to a point.
Sampdoria
are three points behind Roma in third after they drew 2-2 at Cagliari
despite Manolo
Gabbiadini and Spanish midfielder Pedro Obiang giving
them a 2-0 interval lead.
"We didn't draw, we lost," Samp coach Sinisa Mihajlovic told Sky. "We can't afford to give away points like we did today.
"The only positive is that we're still in third place and still unbeaten."
Cagliari
were given hope 13 minutes into the second half when Fabrizio
Cacciatore saw red for a second bookable offence and defender Danilo
Avelar stepped up to slam the resulting spot-kick into the top
right-hand corner of Emiliano Viviano's net.
The pressure on
Cagliari coach Zdenek Zeman eased somewhat when Marco Sau fired a late
leveller after superbly controlling Avelar's quickfire pass into the
area.
"It wasn't easy to claw back two goals from Sampdoria," said Sau, who now has three goals in seven games.
Elswhere,
Palermo moved off bottom spot after Giancarlo Gonzalez's precision
header secured a 2-1 home win for the Sicilians against Cesena.
Fabio
Quagliarella's 62nd-minute strike was enough to secure a 1-0 home win
for Torino against Udinese, while in Bergamo Yiadom Boakye bundled home a
90th-minute winner to secure a 1-0 win for Atalanta against Parma.
Parma now sit bottom of Serie A with six defeats and just one win in seven games.
Earlier,
Serbian international Filip Djordjevic scored his fifth goal in three
games as Lazio won 2-0 away to misfiring Fiorentina.
Lazio sit sixth, seven points off top spot, with Fiorentina in ninth place, 10 points off the pace.
