Champions Juventus battled to a 3-1 victory over 10-man Sassuolo to close the gap on the top three in Serie A on Sunday night. Andrea Pirlo’s side won their third straight league match for the first time this season to move fourth, seven points behind leaders AC Milan with a game in hand. Sassuolo drop to seventh after their third loss in five games. 
“It was important to give continuity and win tonight, because otherwise the match played on Wednesday at San Siro was useless,” said Juventus coach Andrea Pirlo whose side ended Milan’s 27-match unbeaten run midweek.
Sassuolo played the entire second half a man down after Pedro Obiang saw red for a dangerous challenge on Federico Chiesa. Defender Danilo put Juventus ahead in the 50th minute when he fired home his first goal of the season.
But seven minutes later Sassuolo pulled level with Gregoire Defrel brilliantly finishing off a Hamed Junior Traore through ball. Substitute Aaron Ramsey gave Juventus the advantage again eight minutes from time when he tapped in a Gianluca Frabotta cross to claim his first goal of the campaign. Cristiano Ronaldo completed the scoring deep into injury time, rifling in his 15th league goal this term. “It was a painful match, badly managed after our advantage, but the important thing was winning even if we were a little disorganised,” added Pirlo.
It was a bruising clash for the reigning champions, who are chasing their 10th title in a row, as they lost forward Paulo Dybala and Weston McKennie to injury in the first half. Midfielder McKennie pulled up after 18 minutes with a muscle problem and was replaced by Welsh international Ramsey.
Dybala was substituted three minutes before the break after receiving treatment for a knock to his left knee, with Swede Dejan Kulusevski coming on in his place. 
Dybala was yesterday ruled out for up to 20 days. In a statement, Juventus said that Argentina forward Dybala had undergone examinations at the club’s medical centre which revealed injury to “the medial collateral ligament of the left knee with recovery times of approximately 15/20 days”.
The 27-year-old has scored just two league goals in a rocky season under new coach Andrea Prilo which has also featured a spat with the club over a contract extension. He will now miss Juve’s clash with title rivals Inter Milan this weekend, with the Turin club seven points behind current league leaders AC Milan.
Juve added that Weston McKennie, who pulled up after 18 minutes at the Allianz Stadium and was replaced by Ramsey, was being monitored but that tests found no injuries to the American midfielder.
Federico Chiesa has also avoided a spell on the sidelines despite being on the receiving end of a hard Pedro Obiang tackle which led to the Sassuolo midfielder being sent off just before the end of the first half.
Juve are currently also without Alex Sandro, Juan Cuadrado and Matthijs de Ligt, who have all tested positive for coronavirus.