Serie A | Sassuolo 0-1 Torino: In-form Vlasic punishes Doig shocker

The in-form Nikola Vlasic netted in his third consecutive Serie A match to hand Torino all three points in an important 1-0 victory away against Sassuolo on Sunday afternoon.

Sassuolo came in off the back of a 2-2 draw away against Milan last time out. Fabio Grosso made three alterations to that team, with Josh Doig, Aster Vranckx and Armand Lauriente coming back into the side. Marco Baroni made just the one change after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Cremonese, with Adrien Tameze coming in to replace Saul Coco in the back three. 

Click here to read more about how today’s teams lined up.

Torino came close to claiming a first-half lead after Arijanet Muric spilled Vlasic’s shot from the edge of the area. Che Adams fired off target on the rebound, but drew a foul in the area from international colleague Doig in the process. 

A penalty was originally awarded, but a VAR check deemed that Torino’s Tameze had fouled Namanja Matic in the process, and the decision was overturned. 

Doig was let off once more in the first half when he lost out to Marcus Holmgren Pedersen on the edge of the area. Pedersen provided a great cross for Duvan Zapata at the far post, but the Colombian flashed over the bar with his first-time effort. 

It turned out to be an afternoon to forget for Doig, who gave away another penalty by bringing down Giovanni Simeone with a clumsy challenge in the corner of the area.

There was no VAR let-off for the Scotsman on this occasion, as Vlasic stepped up to dispatch the spot-kick into the bottom left corner of the net. 

The Croatian has now scored in three consecutive matches and has six goal involvements from his last five outings in Serie A.

Today’s result brings Torino up to 12th place in the Serie A table. They are one point behind Sassuolo, who remain in ninth place on 21. Both sides could still be overtaken by Atalanta should they beat Genoa away from home later on Sunday evening.

Sassuolo 0-1 Torino

Vlasic 66’.