(Reuters) -Goals from Christian Pulisic and Santiago Gimenez earned AC Milan a 2-0 win away at Venezia on Sunday, to leave the hosts ever closer to relegation from Serie A despite a battling performance.
The visitors, fresh from their advance to the Coppa Italia final after a 3-0 semi-final second leg win over neighbours Inter Milan on Wednesday, scored early and finished off a brave Venezia with another goal on the stroke of fulltime.
Milan remain ninth in the standings on 54 points, while Venezia are second from bottom on 25 points, one point off 17th-placed Lecce who are just outside the relegation zone before facing Atalanta later on Sunday.
The game, preceded by a minute's silence in honour of Pope Francis who died on Monday, had Milan take the lead in the fifth minute after Venezia played a poor ball out from the back, gifting possession to the visitors.
Youssouf Fofana rolled a pass into the path of Pulisic in the box, who controlled perfectly with his first touch before firing past goalkeeper Ionut Radu to net his 10th league goal of the season.
Venezia, in desperate need of points to avoid an immediate return to Serie B, regained their composure and dominated the rest of the opening half.
Alessio Zerbin shot just wide and John Yeboah also missed the target from a wide angle, with Hans Nicolussi Caviglia curling a free kick past the Milan wall but narrowly wide of the post.
Venezia thought they had found a deserved equaliser when Yeboah smashed home from inside the area but the goal was disallowed for an offside in the build-up.
Pulisic had the ball in the net again before halftime but was well offside and Milan took their narrow lead into the break.
After the interval, Venezia continued where they left off with an early chance but Caviglia hit his first time effort wide of the mark.
Tammy Abraham, a late Milan call-up after Luka Jovic suffered a back injury in the warm-up, fired over shortly before being replaced by Gimenez.
Zerbin had a late chance to rescue a point but his shot from the edge of the area flashed wide and deep into stoppage time, Tijjani Reijnders' long ball found Gimenez in the area and the substitute coolly chipped the keeper to wrap up the win.
(Reporting by Trevor StynesEditing by Christian Radnedge)
