Milan go top of the table after a chaotic win away to Genoa, which saw a late Christian Pulisic goal, both goalkeepers sent off and Olivier Giroud take the gloves for a double save.
The Rossoneri rested a few stars after the Champions League draw with Borussia Dortmund, while Simon Kjaer, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Rade Krunic, Ismael Bennacer, Pierre Kalulu and Mattia Caldara were still out of action, so Luka Jovic got his first start. The Grifone missed Mateo Retegui, Junior Messias, Milan Badelj and Kevin Strootman.
Noah Okafor’s first touch was a little too heavy on the Samuel Chukwueze ball over the top, allowing Josep Martinez to smother.
Genoa had penalty appeals waved away when Johan Vasquez went down over Alessandro Florenzi’s trailing leg, but the referee was in a good position and considered the Genoa man to have been looking for the contact.
Florenzi tested Martinez from distance and the goalkeeper was alert using his leg to parry from Tijani Reijnders, although Yunus Musah was offside in the build-up.
Theo Hernandez was booked and will be suspended for the next match against Juventus. Milan needed a boost, so introduced Pulisic and Leao for the second half.
They finally created a scoring opportunity when Florenzi’s cross found Rafael Leao at the back post for a header into the ground, which Martinez flew to palm out from under the crossbar.
For the final 20 minutes, Milan moved to 4-4-2 while Genoa switched to a three-man defence. Mike Maignan was called into an extraordinary save because the Rade Dragusin strike from outside the box took a deflection to wrong-foot the goalkeeper, but he still managed to scramble across and with his trailing hand prod it round the far post.
On the resulting corner, Caleb Ekuban got to the cross before Maignan only to nod over the bar.
Mattia Bani threw himself in the way to charge down an acrobatic Jovic volley, while Dragusin blocked the Pulisic effort.
The breakthrough arrived on 87 minutes when Pulisic controlled a Musah cross with his back to goal, turned and cushioned it on his stomach to fire in from 12 yards. There was a very long VAR check for potential handball, but the goal was given, much to the anger of Genoa.
VAR did get involved deep into stoppages when Maignan came tearing out to head a ball clear outside the penalty area, crashing knee-first into the chest of Caleb Ekuban and the referee considered it to be a red card offence. With all the substitutions completed, Olivier Giroud went in goal to face an Albert Gudmundsson free kick.
It was deflected off Tomori onto the crossbar, then Tomori nodded it away for a corner. From that incident, Genoa goalkeeper Martinez came up, but made a mess of his contribution and scythed down Musah for his second yellow card. Genoa did still have a substitution left, so were able to introduce a new goalkeeper.
It still wasn’t over, as in the final kick of the game Giroud showed brave goalkeeping to rush off his line and make a desperate double save on George Puscas and smother the loose ball. At the final whistle, all his teammates rushed over to hug the veteran striker, a goalkeeper for a night.
Genoa 0-1 Milan
Pulisic 87 (M)
Sent off: Maignan 99 (M), Martinez 102 (G)
Player statistic
| 21' |  |
Theo Hernández | ||
| 22' | |
Alessandro Florenzi |
| 47' | |
Yunus Musah | ||
| 62' | |
Yacine Adli | ||
| Koni De Winter | |
68' | ||
| Josep Martínez | |
86' | ||
| 87' |  |
Christian Pulisic (Assist: Yunus Musah) | ||
| Josep Martínez |  |
90+13' | ||
| 90+9' |  |
Mike Maignan | ||
| 90+11' | |
Fikayo Tomori |
Match statistic
