ROME: Lazio striker Ciro Immobile was sent off as Torino ended a four-match winless streak with a 3-1 victory in Serie A on Monday.

Immobile, who has 15 goals this season, was shown a direct red before the break for jerking his head at Nicolas Burdisso and landing his shoulder in the defender’s face.

Immobile, who previously played for Torino, had been protesting for an apparent handball by Iago Falque on a cross of his inside the area.

The defeat ended Lazio’s hopes of joining city rivals AS Roma in fourth.

“I can analyse the first half because the match was decided by the referee,” an angry Lazio coach Simone Inzaghi said. “It was the most difficult break for me since I’ve been coach. It wasn’t right.”

Andrea Belotti and Immobile both rattled the woodwork in the first half before tempers flared following a blatant Falque handball in the penalty area.

Immobile was sent off after the referee consulted the VAR (video assistant referee).

“Immobile’s sending off? I don’t care. That’s what VAR is there for,” said Torino coach Sinisa Mihajlovic. “I want to talk about the match, because I’m proud of my boys, we deserved these three points because we were superior.”

All four goals were scored in the second half with Alex Berenguer opening after 54 minutes and Venezuelan Tomas Rincon adding a second ten minutes later after a solo break from midfield through the Lazio defence.

Luis Alberto pulled one back for Lazio but Simone Edera restored Torino’s two-goal advantage.

The win moves Torino up from 12th to eighth position, with Lazio, who have a game in hand, staying fifth, eight points behind leaders Inter Milan.

Meanwhile, the game between Genoa and Atalanta was postponed until Tuesday because of snow in northern Italy.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2017