Troubled AC Milan slump to defeat at Torino

AC Milan’s troubles continued on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat at Torino in which the seven-time European champions conceded a bizarre own goal and had a penalty saved.

Sergio Conceicao’s Milan sit seventh in Italy’s top flight, six points from Lazio and the Champions League positions after Gvidas Gineitis hit them with a sucker punch with 14 minutes remaining.

Milan thought they had set up a grandstand finish just two minutes before when Tijjani Reijnders classily struck his 12th goal of the season in all competitions and cancelled out the unfortunate Malick Thiaw’s early own goal.

Thiaw was left dumbfounded in the fifth minute when his goalkeeper Mike Maignan came charging out to clear the ball only to thump it against the Germany defender’s back, from where it ricocheted back into his own net.

Milan’s night went from bad to worse in the 33rd minute when Christian Pulisic failed to score from the penalty spot for the first time in his career, after the away side were gifted a chance to level by Marcus Pedersen’s handball.

Vanja Milinkovic-Savic’s lightning reactions saw him save his fourth spot-kick of the season, and it took a sensational strike from Reijnders to beat the Serbia goalkeeper who was brilliant all match.

But just as Milan were set to push for the win, Antonio Sanabria caught the Milan defence napping by quickly taking a free-kick and feeding Gineitis for his second goal of the campaign.

The almost comical nature of Milan’s loss comes after they were dumped out of the Champions League by Feyenoord on Tuesday, largely due to Theo Hernandez being sent off for two daft bookings.

Milan can however stay in touch with the top four if they win Thursday’s game in hand at Bologna, who were beaten 2-0 at Cristian Chivu’s Parma earlier on Saturday.

Parma moved out of the Serie A relegation zone by ending a seven-match winless run on Chivu’s senior managerial debut.

A first-half penalty from Ange-Yoan Bonny and Simon Sohm’s super finish 11 minutes from the end moved Parma up to 17th in Italy’s top flight, two points above Empoli who dropped into the bottom three and host Atalanta on Sunday.

Former Romania defender Chivu agreed a contract with Parma until the end of next season after Fabio Pecchia was sacked on Monday.