Bologna suffered an unlucky defeat on new coach Thiago Motta’s debut, hitting the woodwork twice, as Empoli took their first win of the season with Filippo Bandinelli.

The Rossoblu sacked Sinisa Mihajlovic last week and won their first game of the season under caretaker Luca Vigiani, beating Fiorentina 2-1, so Thiago Motta made his debut on the bench and switched to four at the back. Adama Soumaoro and Nicola Sansone were injured, but Marko Arnautovic shook off a knock to start. Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro was suspended, with Mattia Destro, Lorenzo Tonelli, Tyronne Ebuehi and Tommaso Baldanzi out of action.

There is a minute’s silence before all Serie A games this weekend for the victims of the flash flood in the Marche region.

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Lukasz Skorupski fingertipped an early Sam Lammers header over the bar, then needed two desperate saves on Martin Satriano and Lammers, who had pounced on horrible back-passes and didn’t take those gifts from Andrea Cambiaso and Stefan Posch.

Riccardo Orsolini tested Guglielmo Vicario with a fingertip save on the angled drive, then an acrobatic cross-shot, while Lorenzo De Silvestri nodded over the bar.

Bologna received a penalty when Petar Stojanovic charged down Cambiaso’s cross with his arm raised at the by-line. However, it was revoked because Cambiaso was offside.

Moments later, Vicario got down extraordinarily quickly to beat away the Orsolini daisy-cutter, then Arnautovic nodded a Denso Kasius cross wide at the back post.

Nicolò Cambiaghi stung Skorupski’s gloves at the near stick and Empoli took the lead somewhat against the run of play for the second half. Skorupski managed to push a Liam Henderson pull-back off the feet of Lammers, but could do nothing on the Filippo Bandinelli follow-up.

There was chaos barely two minutes later when Bologna thought they’d equalised, but Arnautovic’s header thumped the upright from point-blank range.

The hosts were unlucky again in stoppages, a corner flicked on for Joshua Zirkzee to volley onto the crossbar from six yards.

Bologna 0-1 Empoli

Bandinelli 75 (E)

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