MILAN: Champions Juventus went top of Serie A on Saturday with a 2-0 win at Chievo Verona, who had only themselves to blame after two players got themselves sent off.

Samuel Bastien was first to press the self-destruct button when he was given a second yellow card in the 38th minute for hauling Kwadwo Asamoah back by his shirt under the referee’s nose, three minutes after being booked for fouling the same player.

Fabrizio Cacciatore followed on the hour mark for making a handcuffs gesture — similar to the one Jose Mourinho made as Inter coach in 2010 — to suggest he was being victimised as he protested a refereeing decision.

With the Flying Donkeys down to nine players, Juve finally went ahead in the 67th minute when Federico Bernardeschi pulled the ball back for Sami Khedira to rifle home.

Despite the numerical disadvantage, Chievo went close to levelling before Gonzalo Higuain made sure of the three points by heading in from Douglas Costa’s precise cross with two minutes left.

Juventus, chasing a seventh successive league title, went top with 56 points from 22 games, two ahead of Napoli who have a game in hand.

“It’s an important win because we overtook Napoli and we did not concede a goal, but we could have done better, especially in the first half,” said Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri.

“In the second half when Chievo were down to nine it became all the easier even though we kept making the same mistakes. We have to improve in the quality of our game.”

Atalanta continued their impressive season with a 3-0 win at Sassuolo which lifted them to seventh, a point outside the Europa League qualifying berths.

Andrea Masiello headed them in front on the half hour before Bryan Cristante and Remo Freuler added further goals in the last 10 minutes.

Cristante also had a goal disallowed for offside in the 65th minute after the referee reviewed it using the video assistant referee (VAR).

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2018