Borriello comes back to haunt Milan

Marco Borriello came back to haunt former club AC Milan on Saturday, scoring the only goal of the game as Roma blew the Serie A title race wide open.

Borriello struck 21 minutes from time with a lucky goal he knew next to nothing about but that won’t have worried the 28-year-old who was ditched by Milan in favour of bog-money signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic at the start of the season. Victory was vital for Claudio Ranieri’s team, who would have fallen 13 points off the leaders had they lost. Instead they are now just seven points behind Milan whose lead will be cut to three points should either Juventus, Napoli or Lazio win on Sunday. Ranieri was understandably happy.

“Of course a win against the league leaders means a lot, if we’d have lost we’d have suffered a notable psychological blow.

“Winning has kept us alive, although we’re aware of our difficulties. French winger Jeremy Menez, who created the winning goal, said this victory was vital.

“It was important to win most of all to show that we’re still in it, that we’re Roma,” he said.

“We have a great team.

“Before heading off on holiday we’ve won an important game.

“We believe in the title and we always have. The season is long and we hope we’ll continue to do well after the winter break.”

Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri complained that his team had not been clinical enough.

“As we didn’t play particularly well we deserved a draw but when you’re not nasty enough in the right moments, these things can happen,” he said. Given the high stakes it was perhaps unsurprising that the match was a largely cagey affair.

The first half in particular featured almost no attacking from Roma, who seemed content to simply defend the edge of their box.

ROME, AFP