Manita ends all hope

Cremonese are now practically relegated to Serie B after an embarrassing 5-1 home defeat to Bologna, including Marko Arnautovic and Riccardo Orsolini goals.

If Spezia get any result against Lecce this weekend, then Cremonese are mathematically doomed to the drop with Sampdoria.

The hosts were running out of time to avoid relegation, sitting in penultimate place, six points behind both Verona and Spezia. Cyriel Dessers is out for the rest of the season, while Bologna missed Roberto Soriano, Georgios Kyriakopoulos and Adama Soumaoro, but had Stefan Posch back from his ban. Thiago Motta’s side were without a win in six, albeit holding Milan, Juventus and Roma to draws in that time.

There was a minute’s silence before all Serie A games this weekend for the victims of the floods in Emilia-Romagna, which includes Bologna. The visitors broke the deadlock when Musa Barrow seemed to attempt a curler to the far top corner from the edge of the box, which was going off target until Marko Arnautovic redirected it with a header.

Bologna added a second, as a Riccardo Orsolini corner took a double ricochet off Lewis Ferguson and Soualiho Meite, the Scottish midfielder reacting quickly to fire in from six yards. Marco Carnesecchi kept the scoreline down with flying saves on Nico Dominguez and Orsolini, then the Italian winger blasted inches wide of the far post.

David Okereke’s header flashed over from six yards on Emanuele Valeri’s cross and that wasted opportunity was punished, because Posch nodded in another Orsolini corner on the stroke of half-time. The referee pointed to the spot for a Cremonese penalty on the hour mark, but that was revoked following a VAR on-field review, as the ball struck Kevin Bonifazi right where the arm meets the shoulder, so was not handball.

On the resulting corner, Bologna broke on the counter and Nikola Moro’s through ball allowed Orsolini to spring the offside trap, dribbling around Carnesecchi to score from a tight angle. Lukasz Skorupski had his gloves stung by a Cristian Buonaiuto rocket, but Carnesecchi denied Arnautovic one-on-one from Andrea Cambiaso’s through ball.

Orsolini got himself sent off for a second bookable offence with a mistimed lunge in midfield on Vasquez. Despite being down to 10 men, Bologna still made it 5-0 on the counter with Barrow’s slide-rule pass for substitute Nicola Sansone to nutmeg a defender with the finish. Daniel Ciofani’s stoppage-time goal was scant consolation, a free kick into the box coming to the striker for a deflected volley.