During the second half, Juventus defeated Lecce 4-0 to pull seven points clear at the top of Serie A with all their goals coming. The result also saw Juve posting their fifth straight clean sheet, their best two-year run, while Lecce has now conceded 19 goals in just four games.
In Miralem Pjanic, Federico Bernardeschi and Blaise Matuidi who were missing five first-teamers including Diego Farias and Gianluca Lapadula, the Bianconeri went left-back against a Lecce side.
Lecce started brightly, without producing anything concrete, though Marco Mancosu forced Wojciech Szczesny into a save from close range. The Bianconeri extended into the game despite being caught in possession, capitalizing on Lucioni’s red card and taking down Rodrigo Bentancur as the last man.
Gabriel, who was pleased to see Ronaldo send his post a kick overhead and daisy-cutter wide, kicked off Adrien Rabiot’s rocket.
Ronaldo then spurned a glorious opportunity to push the Old Lady forward, the unmarked No 7 heading inexplicably over the bar from two yards out. Bernardeschi had also been guilty of fluffing his lines from a similar spot, blazing moments later over the Portuguese’s low cross.
The Salentini seemed to be able to hold out earlier in the season as they did in the 1-1 draw between the sides but Douglas Costa’s inclusion kicked Juve into gear. Though Costa didn’t score, he lit up the Old Lady’s attack as Dybala quickly curled one into Gabriel ‘s season goal No 15 net roof.
Rossettini then tripped over Ronaldo, who smashed the ensuing penalty past Milan’s former goalkeeper. From that point on it was a case of damage limitation for Lecce, who seemed to concede every time the hosts hit. For his first appearance,Gonzalo Higuain came off the bench, since the restart and capped it with Juve’s third goal.
Ronaldo gave up adding to his total and became a dealer, teeing his backheel on No 9 for an exciting finish.
League leaders were given time for a fourth goal, as Matthijs de Ligt went to scramble home in a short corner.
