Standings implications: this round favored the chasers as Milan got trucked by Atalanta and Inter could not perforate Udinese and had to settle for a nil-nil tie. Roma outlasted Spezia despite the troublesome week, while Juventus prevailed against Bologna. The gap between the top two teams and the third place is now down to four points, while Napoli got leapfrogged as they got torpedoed by Verona and Lazio patiently mounted a comeback versus Sassuolo.
In the bottom half of the standings, Benevento and Torino shared the spoils in an entertaining game, Fiorentina sunk Crotone, Sampdoria blitzed Parma and Genoa nabbed another positive result as they squeaked it out versus Cagliari.
Confirmations: Duvan Zapata found the target of the seventh time in the past eight matches, Josip Ilicic for the third, but he provided a bunch of assists in between. Ciro Immobile clocked in once again. Dusan Vlahovic, Balde Keita and Mattia Destro both extended their sizzling runs. Borja Mayoral bagged his second brace in the span of a month and Roberto Piccoli tried to give his best M’Bala Nzola impression. Simy knocked one through for the second week in a row, same achievement for Hirving Lozano, but Verona linchpins Federico Dimarco and Mattia Zaccagni had other plans.
Guess who is back: Nicolas Viola delivered on his first start of the season after missing time with multiple injuries and Gianluca Lapadula finally snapped out of his scoring slump that commenced in November, but Torino clawed back riding a brace by Simone Zaza, who had not hit the net in six appearances. Diego Farias made the stat-sheet after more than a month, while Daniele Verde notched his second goal, the first since October as he was shelved for months. First score also for Roma’s Rick Karsdorp, Juventus’ Arthur and especially Fiorentina’s Giacomo Bonaventura, who has strong fantasy upside. Antonin Barak resurfaced in the stat-sheet after three quiet months in that respect. Two sleeping fantasy giants traded blows in Lazio-Sassuolo after some so-so periods: Francesco Caputo and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.
Surprise scorers: Cristian Romero scored a gorgeous diving header to start the dances against the Rossoneri. Weston McKennie is only a relative surprise at this point as he is up to three goals in the campaign. Maya Yoshida bagged his first goal since coming to Italy.
Flops of the round: Milan were completely outplayed by Atalanta, while Inter had little juice versus Udinese.
Clutch goal: strange times for Roma because of the Coppa Italia substitution snafu and a rift between Edin Dzeko and Paulo Fonseca, but Lorenzo Pellegrini likely saved his coach’s job with a very late goal to push them past Spezia in stoppage time.
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