Juve held by Salernitana as Atalanta relinquish Serie A lead

Juventus came back from two goals down at half-time to draw 2-2 in an incident-packed match with Salernitana on Sunday as Atalanta gave up the Serie A lead after a 1-1 draw with Cremonese.

Massimiliano Allegri’s Juve drew for the fourth time this season but the point shared doesn’t tell the story of a match which ended with four red cards being shown after Arkadiusz Milik’s last-gasp winner was ruled out following a VAR check.

The Poland striker sent the Allianz Stadium into raptures with a glancing header five minutes into stoppage time, but the goal was chalked off for Leonardo Bonucci being offside and interfering with play.

Bonucci had levelled on the rebound from his own missed penalty just two minutes previously to set up a grandstand finish which ended in farce.

Milik was given a second yellow card for removing his shirt after scoring what he thought was the decisive goal and then Juan Cuadrado, Salernitana defender Federico Fazio and Allegri were all sent off as tensions flared on the sidelines.

A match that ended in chaos began with Salernitana putting in a superb opening 45 minutes which had them two goals to the good through Antonio Candreva’s tap-in and a Krzysztof Piatek penalty on the stroke of half-time.

Davide Nicola’s side pulled off a survival miracle on the final day of last season and have got off to a promising start this term. 

Salernitana are 10th on seven points, three behind unbeaten Juve who are struggling with injuries and form in the early part of the season.

Their first ever point at Juve was the fourth draw in six games so far in the new campaign.

Atalanta had been out on their own as leaders of Italy’s top flight for the first time in over 60 years heading into the weekend’s fixtures. 

But Emanuele Valeri’s 78th-minute leveller earned Cremonese a point in Bergamo to leave Atalanta second.

Atalanta, who opened the scoring through Merih Demiral four minutes before Valeri’s strike, are level on 14 points with leaders Napoli and reigning champions AC Milan, both winners on Saturday.

Promoted Cremonese are in Serie A for the first time since 1996 and stay in the bottom three on two points from their opening six games.