Milan vs Spezia ended for Milan's victory with a narrow score of 2-1. It was a pretty good result actually for Milan but I have some regrets about Goal and Giroud's over-celebration after scoring a goal and had to be sent off for getting his second yellow card in this match.
With this result Milan succeeded in shifting Atalanta in second position after Atalanta lost to Napoli which indeed makes Napoli now quite comfortable with their 6-point difference for a while.
With this difficult winning, AC Milan continue to race with Napoli and now they already stand at the second position on the Serie A Table. The gap between AC Milan and Napoli is still big because Napoli just won against Atalanta too. One more match day till the World Cup and if the gap maintains at 6 or reduces to 3, the return of Serie A after the World Cup will be very exciting.
Maybe it will be a different story if Giroud as a starter. Pioli look underestimates Spezia in 1st half and begins confusion after Maldini equalizes the score. Pioli also forced Giroud in 2nd half to play hard so that he get the 2nd yellow card. In this match, I bit more winning because I bet in a draw, but that guy is broken my winning in the last minutes.
Some players can play better when they start on bench but play worse if they start from the squad at beginning of matches. Giroud is more like a first type of players and he can contribute more if he is used as a substitution. He can make surprise to opponent's defenders and can use his physical body strength to break their defense down in the second half of a match.
Napoli has defeated several powerful teams in Serie A, including Roma, AC Milan, and Atalanta. It's so surprising that Liverpool defeated the Napoli in their last champion league match played despite they performed well but that is what game is all about.
With the defeat of Atalanta, AS Roma have an opportunity to take the third position from Atalanta, if they win the Rome Derby today. If they win the derby, they will have one point more than Atalanta and 1 point less than AC Milan, 7 points less than Napoli.
I believe that Jose Mourinho is still thinking about Scudetto and he won't give up the hope too soon.