Alphadjo Cisse and Christian Pulisic's quickfire first-half goals helped AC Milan edge to a 2-1 win over Genoa in Serie A.
Genoa 1-2 AC Milan: Cisse and Pulisic secure win with quickfire goals
AC Milan bounced back from their Europa League loss in midweek with a victory over Genoa, thanks to a fast start which brought two goals.
Pulisic was at the heart of both goals, which were netted within the first 19 minutes, and though Mikael Ellertsson pulled one back late on for Genoa, Ruben Amorim's side held on to move fourth in the table.
Johan Vazquez went long down the left for Milutin Osmajic, who burst in behind Milan's defence to fizz a low shot across goal, though it trickled narrowly wide of the far post just 51 seconds in.
But after 13 minutes, Vazquez was caught playing out from the back by Pulisic. Adrien Rabiot took over and pulled it back to the unmarked Cisse, who coolly slotted in the opener.
Six minutes later, Milan had doubled their lead. Hamed Traore appeared to have cut out a pacy counter-attack, only to gift it to Goncalo Ramos. He unselfishly teed up Pulisic, who recovered from the stretch to fire it into the bottom-right corner.
Osmajic thought he had pulled a goal back on the half-hour mark, flicking Vitinha's nod down past Mike Maignan, but he had strayed past the last defender.
Samuel Wiafe and Leo Ostigard both saw chances saved late in the first half as Genoa chased an equaliser without luck, and the second half proved a much grittier affair.
Koni De Winter headed off target in Milan's best chance after the break, while Vitinha and Ostigard both forced sharp saves from Maignan at the other end.
Stephan El Shaarawy's free-kick was blocked, but only half-cleared by Milan, and Tommaso Baldanzi recycled it to Ellertsson, who was allowed to carry it towards the box before skimming his low, bobbling strike past Maignan, but Genoa could not find an equaliser.
Milan make their chances count
While Milan are looking strong in Serie A as things stand, sitting in the Champions League places heading into the international break, they came into this game on the back of a disappointing Europa League defeat to Ferencvaros.
Milan lacked a clinical edge in midweek, but they put those worries to bed within 19 minutes thanks to two quickfire goals that eventually got the job done.
Cisse is one of only three players born in 2006 or later in Europe's top five leagues to have scored eight or more goals across all competitions in 2026-27, alongside Lamine Yamal (13) and Paris Brunner (eight).
No Milan player had more than one shot (six overall), and they scored with both shots on target, but it was Luka Modric who pulled the strings when they needed to defend that lead, having a game-high 112 touches, as well as completing 93 of his 102 passes.
Genoa will feel they should have walked away with at least a point after racking up 17 shots worth 1.14 expected goals (xG), with five of those on target, but they struggled to truly test Maignan.
