It was a tale of two own goals as Spezia and Empoli shared the spoils, although a VAR review saw a potential winner revoked.
The Tuscans were in the top half of the table and flying high, especially after knocking Verona out of the Coppa Italia midweek in a 4-3 thriller. Tension was sky high at Spezia, who crashed out of that competition against Serie B side Lecce and were jeered off the pitch.
Eddie Salcedo, Jacopo Sala and Daniele Verde were out of action, while Empoli lost Nicolas Haas for several months to a knee injury.
A long-range Szymon Zurkowski strike was fingertipped over the bar, while Giulio Maggiore couldn’t quite keep his volley on target at the back post and Andrea Pinamonti’s glancing header hit the side-netting.
Empoli thought they had taken the lead on 33 minutes when Filippo Bandinelli pulled back from the by-line for Federico Di Francesco, but it was cleared off the line by Kelvin Amian.
Ivan Provedel made the save as Pinamonti only glanced at the Liam Henderson cross, but Spezia took the lead straight after the restart against the run of play.
Arkadiusz Reca got down the left and rolled across, it bounced off Sebastiano Luperto first and then Riccardo Marchizza, ricocheting into the net from four yards.
Pinamonti ballooned over from a well-worked free kick routine, but the equaliser arrived with another own goal, as Zurkowski rolled across from the right and Dimitrios Nikolaou accidentally prodded into his net from close range.
It was suddenly all Empoli again, Patrick Cutrone’s glancing header saved and then a Pinamonti shot charged down by Amian saw the referee point to the spot. However, after viewing it again on the VAR monitor, the official acknowledged it hit Amian’s ribcage and armpit rather than his arm.
Liam Henderson’s control and half-volley skimmed the far post.
Spezia 1-1 Empoli
Marchizza og 49 (S), Nikolaou og 71 (E)