It was a frankly bizarre game, as Torino dominated, saw two goals disallowed and numerous saves, went behind to a Mattia Destro bicycle kick and eventually equalised against Empoli with Sasa Lukic’s stomach.

The Granata had lost three on the bounce and had coach Ivan Juric suspended, but an empty treatment room at last. Empoli missed Ardian Ismajli, Alberto Grassi, Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro and Lorenzo Tonelli after their stoppage-time defeat to Milan.

Watch the highlights here.

Ola Aina forced a low save from Guglielmo Vicario after just 43 seconds, then Valentino Lazaro’s curler skimmed the far top corner and Nikola Vlasic fired across the face of goal.

There was controversy on 11 minutes when Antonio Sanabria was shown a straight red card for an apparent stamp on Nicolò Cambiaghi, but it was extremely harsh and quite rightly changed to a yellow after the VAR on-field review.

Vicario got down for a fantastic fingertip save on Nikola Vlasic’s strike from the edge of the area, pushing it off the line and round the post.

It was one-way traffic, as Vlasic’s diving header thumped the upright from six yards on an Ola Aina cross, then as the move continued Vicario got to the Sasa Lukic follow-up at the other post.

Vicario made another remarkable save on a deflected effort, but as the move continued, Ola Aina’s cross turned into an assist for Aleksei Miranchuk’s header into the net. However, it was disallowed for the earlier Sanabria offside position.

Sanabria had the ball in the net himself on the stroke of half-time with a dink over the goalkeeper, but again he had made the run too early and was offside.

Ola Aina stung Vicario’s gloves with a scorcher from distance, but somehow it ended goalless at half-time.

Mattia Destro and Marko Pjaca were thrown on, making an immediate impact, as Empoli took the shock lead with an acrobatic Destro bicycle-kick from 12 yards into the near bottom corner. It was the veteran’s first goal in eight months and totally against the run of play.

Ola Aina’s header scraped a coat of paint off the upright from Lazaro’s cross, then Empoli had the ball in the net again with a Destro glancing header on a free kick, but he was offside this time.

Sebastiano Luperto charged down a Vlasic strike, while Vlasic, Koffi Djidji and Nemanja Radonjic failed to make the most of headers in the six-yard box.

Torino finally got a stroke of luck in the final minute, as Vicario only parried a Yann Karamoh cross and Sebastiano Luperto tried to clear, but it hit Sasa Lukic on the stomach and ricocheted into the net from point-blank range.

Torino 1-1 Empoli

Destro 49 (E), Lukic 90 (T)

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