Norwegian midfielder Jens Petter Hauge snatched a late equaliser to salvage a point for AC Milan whose poor home run continued with a 1-1 draw against 10-man Sampdoria on Saturday.
Milan are five points behind leaders Inter who travel to Bologna later on Saturday, with their city rivals also having a game in hand.
“Milan have complicated lives for themselves,” said coach Stefano Pioli whose side have not won at home in almost two months.
“When mentally you can’t get into the game right away then the difficulties of the match increase. Today we paid dearly because we didn’t win.”
Sampdoria had dominated the first half an hour with Milan staying in the game thanks to saves from goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who denied Manolo Gabbiadini early and a Morten Thorsby header.
And the hosts were on the back foot after a foolish Theo Hernandez pass across midfield after 57 minutes allowed veteran Fabio Quagliarella to pounce and lob from a distance over Donnarumma who was out of his goal.
It was the 38-year-old Quagliarella’s 10th goal this campaign, reaching double figures for the fifth consecutive league season, with his 174 Serie A goals making him the top scorer active in the Italian top flight.
Claudio Ranieri’s side went a man down just after their goal with Adrien Silva sent off after picking up a second yellow card for a foul on Samu Castillejo.
Ante Rebic came off the bench for the hosts and threatened with Hakan Calhanoglu denied by Sampdoria goalkeeper Emil Audero before Hauge broke through beating the rival defence and curling the ball into the corner.
The hosts missed a chance for a late winner with Zlatan Ibrahimovic sending through for Franck Kessie who rattled the woodwork.
Milan’s push for a first league title since 2011 has been hit by their poor home form with just two wins out of eight home games in the league in 2021.
Draw in turin derby
Juventus have failed to make their dominance pay as Torino earned a point in the 2-2 draw.
Juventus started the match brightly, and had a great chance early on when Cristiano Ronaldo headed down to Federico Chiesa, but off-balance he fired well off target.
The Italian puts things right shortly afterwards however, after he plays it into Alvaro Morata and sprints forwards towards goal, and after receiving the one-two carries the ball past the defenders and into the box before nutmegging the goalkeeper.
Our lead didn’t last a quarter of an hour however as Tony Sanabria leapt in the box on the loose ball after Wojciech Szczesny failed to hold onto the ball as he dived low to save.
We went into the break frustrated knowing we had the better chances of the match, but that went from bad to worse after the restart.
That man Sanabria once again took advantage of another mistake, this time by Dejan Kulusevski, whose failed pass was latched onto to run in behind the defence and score, although Szczesny again should have done better.
We tried to attack in numbers, and the home side were allowing us to come at them, and we looked like we were going to go on for all three points after scoring late on.
Cristiano Ronald made it 2-2 after latching onto Chiellini’s effort with just over 10 minutes left on the clock, and it was all one-way traffic from this point onwards.
With the game ending at 2-2 however, all eyes will be on Andrea Pirlo with some reports claiming that his job is on the line. They currently sit fourth in the division with fear of missing out on the Champions League, which will certainly not be good enough.