Romelu Lukaku and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia gave Napoli a huge 2-0 victory at San Siro, as Paulo Fonseca faces renewed pressure over controversial Milan decisions.
It was a disastrous build-up for the Rossoneri, as Saturday’s game with Bologna was postponed due to severe weather warnings, so Theo Hernandez and Tijjani Reijnders bans carried over. Christian Pulisic also had flu, with Matteo Gabbia, Tammy Abraham, Luka Jovic, Alessandro Florenzi and Ismael Bennacer injured, but Rafael Leao was dropped for the second league game running. The leaders missed only Stanislav Lobotka, replaced again by Billy Gilmour.
See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.
The visitors came flying out of the gates, Amir Rrahmani seeing his effort accidentally charged down by Lukaku after a quickly-taken free kick, then the deadlock broken in the fifth minute.
Rrahmani found Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, whose slide-rule pass released Lukaku through the middle, shrugging off Strahinja Pavlovic with great ease to sweep into the near bottom corner with the inside of the left boot. It was his 100th Serie A goal contribution, scoring 74 and assisting 26 in 137 games.
Yunus Musah hit a scorcher inches past the far post from just inside the area, then Alex Meret got down to push a dangerous Samuel Chukwueze strike out from the far bottom corner.
Meret was also quick off his line to stop Musah making the most of an error playing out from the back, then Matias Olivera stopped Musah tapping in after the acrobatic Alvaro Morata back-heel flick.
Matteo Politano drilled just wide of the near post following a Musah mistake, but Napoli doubled their lead somewhat against the run of play on the stroke of half-time.
Kvaratskhelia gathered from the left, cut inside past two Milan defenders and bent the powerful right-foot finish into the far bottom corner from outside the area.
Straight after the restart, a free kick was taken short for Chukwueze’s cross and the Morata towering header beat Meret at the far post, but VAR confirmed the Spain international was offside.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek zipped a ball across the face of goal beyond both Morata and Noah Okafor, while Lukaku fired the Matias Olivera pull-back over the bar and Scott McTominay turned wide from a promising position.
Paulo Fonseca threw Pulisic and Rafael Leao on for the final half-hour, moving Musah to right-back and Loftus-Cheek to midfield.
Musah’s cross only skimmed the head of Morata, as did the Anguissa daisy-cutter with the base of the far post.
Leao shrugged Pasquale Mazzocchi off a long ball and hit a powerful rising strike that Meret flew to fingertip over the crossbar.
Pulisic ballooned over the bar from the Chukwueze assist, as Milan piled forward, but rarely really seemed like scoring.
Milan 0-2 Napoli
Lukaku 5 (N), Kvaratskhelia 43 (N)
Player statistic
| 5' |  |
Romelu Lukaku (Assist: Frank Anguissa) | ||
| 43' | |
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Assist: Mathías Olivera) |
| 73' |  |
Mathías Olivera |
Match statistic
First half – one team played the football and the other scored the goals (woeful keeping by Maignan on the 2nd)
second half – when the Morata goal was Chalked off, Milan went into their shell and accepted their fate.
It simply wasn’t Milan’s night vs the epitome of parking the bus.
Do we need any more proof that Milan are and will always be the second team of Milano. 11 points off, title already gone and no CL next year. But their one good moment was a fluke win against Inter.