Japanese midfielder Keisuke Honda scored twice to help AC Milan to a 3-1 win at Hellas Verona on Sunday in the Serie A while SS Lazio got a third league win on the trot at the expense of Fiorentina in another encounter.
Milan, whose last match before the internaional break was a 2-0 win at home to Chievo Verona, went into the match level on 11 points with Hellas as both sides aimed at maintaining a good start to the Italian season.
And it was the Rossoneri that broke the deadlock midway through the first half in bizarre manner when Hellas defender Rafael Marques volleyed an Ignazio Abate cross into his goal.
Honda then doubled Milan’s lead when he latched on to Stephan El Shaarawy’s pass and slotted past Hellas goalkeeper Rafael in the 27th minute.
Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati was in top form to deny Luca Toni with an overhead kick and Bosko Jankovic, also tipping a Panagiotis Tachtsidis effort over soon after Honda had made it 3-0 for Milan early in the second half with his sixth in seven matches.
Abbiati was finally beaten though by Nico Lopez with three minutes to go but Milan saw out the encounter, which saw Rafael Marquez sent off for Hellas in stoppage time, to go fourth on the standings.
With 14 points, Milan is now five points behind league leaders and defending champions Juventus that stuttered to a 1-1 draw against bottom club Sassuolo on Saturday.
Elsewhere in Serie A on Sunday, Lazio continued its resurgence following a poor start to the season as goals from Filip Đorđević 10 minutes before half-time and Senad Lulić in stopagge time gave the Rome side a 2-0 win at Fiorentina.
The result took Stefani Pioli’s side up to sixth spot with 12 points, a point and place ahead of Hellas Verona and a point behind Udinese that lost 1-0 at Lazio’s next opponent Torino.
Other matches saw Sampdoria squander a two-goal lead to play out a 2-2 draw at Cagliari and maintain third spot on the table with 15 points while Parma fell to the bottom of the league after losing 1-0 at Atalanta.