ROME: Critics had been demanding that Juventus use their younger players more during a horrendous start to Serie A, and they had to be appeased after Moise Kean, Federico Chiesa and Matthijs De Ligt each scored in a 3-2 win at Spezia for the Bianconeri’s first Serie A win of the season on Wednesday.

De Ligt scored the winner in the 72nd minute to complete a comeback after Juve fell behind four minutes after the break. Playing in place of Juventus captain Giorgio Chiellini, the 22-year-old De Ligt coolly redirected in a loose ball that was being knocked around following a corner.

The 23-year-old Chiesa had equalised six minutes earlier with a typical goal for the Italy winger: he darted straight to the goal by dribbling through the legs of a defender then just barely got his shot off as he was sliding toward the ball.

The 21-year-old Kean, like coach Massimiliano Allegri in his second stint at Juve, had given the visitors an early lead with a long shot after Adrien Rabiot knocked down a ball over the top from Leonardo Bonucci.

Spezia had struck back with goals both sides of halftime, the first coming with a solo effort from Emmanuel Gyasi, who dribbled by Danilo on the left flank and looped a long shot into the far corner.

Janis Antiste, a 19-year-old French forward, put Spezia ahead by beating De Ligt on a counterattack with the help of his shot being deflected by Bonucci.

“It was a difficult match, in the first half we played well but they managed to fight back,” said De Ligt, who has fallen down the pecking order.

“We’re in a period where everything that can go wrong does. Both of their goals came from deflections, let’s hope we can have some luck in the future.”

Juventus are eight points behind leaders Inter Milan and AC Milan.

Milan moved level with Inter on 13 points thanks to a Theo Hernandez-inspired 2-0 win over promoted Venezia at the San Siro.

Brahim Diaz scored Milan’s first goal by redirecting a volleyed cross from Hernandez with a volley of his own in the 67th minute in a match in which up to that point the Rossoneri had been restricted to a handful of chances.

Hernandez then sealed the three points with eight minutes remaining when he collected the ball following superb play from fellow substitute Alexis Saelemaekers and lashed in his first goal of the campaign.

“We knew that Venezia were a difficult team to play against... We need to win all of these sorts of matches and now we need to win on Saturday [at Spezia] as well,” said Hernandez to DAZN. “Our goal needs to be to win the title, and that’s what we need to aim for.”

Salernitana earned their first point of the season when they came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 at home with 15th-placed Hellas Verona.

Promoted Empoli are 11th after getting their second win of the season 2-0 at Cagliari thanks to goals in either half from Federico Di Francesco and Leo Stulac.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2021