Week 5 Serie A: Juve and Genoa play out a classic

A short round up tonight of the midweek action, short but sweet some may say.

Inter downed Napoli by 3-1 at the San Siro, Sammy Eto'o put Inter ahead early on and Milito added soon after with another well taken finish. Lucio made it 3-0 towards the end of the half, with Lavezzi pulling one back for a clearly disjointed Napoli side. Donadoni not far away from the sack on evidence of this performance. City rivals Milan lost away to Udinese, a side picking up form in their own right. Di Natale registered his seventh of the season in just five games. Can he go close to 30 goals one wonders and join luca Toni in the only player to surpass the barrier since the 50s?

Roma and Palermo played out a stunning 3-3 draw, while city rivals Lazio slumped to another defeat after not getting out of second gear as Parma picked up the three points in a 2-1 victory. Mauro Zarate did open his account though. Fiorentina though picked up a great three points against early pace setters Sampdoria, with Stefan Jovetic and Alberto Gilardino on the score sheet. It was a far cry from their abysmal performance against Roma at the weekend.

After a stunning start, Bari rather predictably slipped up against strugglers Cagliari as Nene, the top scorer in Portugal last season, scored his first goal in the Italian top flight for a 1-0 away win. Bologna though finally put three points on the board, with Marco Di vaio amongst the goals in a 2-0 win at home to Livorno who look set to struggle this season. Two teams perhaps emerging from their initial struggle, Atalanta and Catania, played out a 0-0 draw in Bergamo in Antonio Contes first game in charge of the Northern outfit. Siena and Chievo did the same, registering a 0-0 draw and a point each. After two straight defeats at the start of the season, Chievo have picked up seven points and now move up to 8th in the table. They face Atalanta on Sunday, so maybe their success will continue.

Finally, in the game of the round Juve traveled to Genoa and picked up a point in a 2-2 classic. Genoa went behind early on thanks to a fantastic Vincenzo Iaquinta goal, but leveled through a stunning Mesto header and then took the lead thanks to Hernan Crespo. His second half bullet header left Buffon with no chance. Juve after had two goals correctly disallowed, but managed to level through substitute Trezeguet. Perhaps this is something they would not have done last season, perhaps they would have collapsed to a defeat like they did last year. A point in the bank, as Juve join Inter at the top and Genoa move up to joint fourth place.