The China Mail - Milan's Serie A title hopes in tatters after shock Udinese defeat

A Davide Bartesaghi own goal and Jurgen Ekkelenkamp's glancing header in the first half, and Arthur Atta's superb low finish in the 71st minute, left Milan nine points behind Inter Milan ahead of the league leaders' clash at Como on Sunday.

With six matches remaining in their season, even an Inter loss at Como would leave third-placed Milan with a near-impossible gap to close.

And a Como win would not be good news either as the lakeside outfit currently sit fourth and five points behind Milan, who have lost three of four matches since winning last month's Milan derby, with Juventus also gunning for a Champions League spot.

Juve are at Atalanta in the day's late match and will move above Como into fourth -- just three points behind Milan -- with a win in Bergamo.

Milan host Juve in a fortnight, a match which looks likely to be key to the top-four positions come May, and the loud whistles which accompanied the end of the game highlighted supporter frustration.

Udinese moved into the top half of the table after an impressive away performance in which Nicolo Zaniolo, who was the rising star of Italian football before suffering two serious knee injuries in 2020, was the standout player.

Zaniolo has had a difficult time of it since being dumped by Roma in 2023, and he was not selected for the Italy squad which recently missed out on a third straight World Cup.

But the 26-year-old has found a home at Udinese and he was key to Bartesaghi's own goal in the 27th minute, as the attacker charged upfield on the counter-attack before offloading to Atta whose cross was deflected into the Milan net.

Ten minutes later Zaniolo whipped in a beautiful, inch-perfect cross for Ekkelenkamp to double the away side's lead and spark rumblings of discontent in the San Siro stands.

Milan pushed up on Udinese after the break, when coach Massimiliano Allegri brought on burly centre forward Niclas Fullkrug, and Alexis Saelemaekers could barely believe it when Maduka Okoye palmed his half-volley onto the crossbar in the 51st minute.

Atta sealed the points for Udinese 20 minutes later when he was allowed to burst towards goal and roll a sneaky low shot in at Mike Maignan's near post.

The discontent was clear when loud boos met Rafael Leao's substitution soon afterwards, and those who were still in the seats at the end made their feelings known at the final whistle.

A.Kwok--ThChM