Cittadella thrash Spezia, gives early Christmas gift to fans.

Cittadella played its final home match of 2023 and won it as the Granata defeated Spezia 4-1 on Saturday afternoon.

Two goals and an assist for second half substitute Filippo Pittarello gave Edoardo Gorini’s side the perfect afternoon. The win puts Cittadella into 4th place as Christmas approaches.

Cittadella showed no signs of slowing down as Giuseppe Carriero opened the scoring after 15 minutes. The midfielder pounced on a flicked header from Luca Pandolfi, poking the ball into the net after a quarter of an hour. The Granata outshot Spezia 9-7 in the first half, but goalkeeper Elhan Kastrati made two key saves to keep the visitors off the scoresheet.

Luca D’Angelo’s side would find an equalizer in the 61st minute. Luca Moro made no mistake from the top of the box, following a quick Spezia counter attack which saw Cittadella outnumbered in defense.

The Granata had only dropped two points in the entire season when scoring the first goal, and that trend looked to be continuing after Filippo Pittarello regained the lead for Cittadella in the 75th minute. Only six minutes after coming on as a substitute, Pittarello netted a header after finding space from Alessio Vita’s cross.

Pittarello would bag his brace six minutes later as he once again rose to a header, firing it into the net off of Tommy Maistrello’s flick-on.

The icing on the cake came four minutes from the 90th, as this time it was Maistrello who got on the scoresheet. A miscue in the back from Spezia saw keeper Jeroen Zoet out of his box, with Pittarello finding an open Maistrello inside the box to fire it home. This was the first time Cittadella scored four goals at home since August 2022 against Pisa.

The three points for Gorini’s side puts them in 4th place two days before Christmas. Only one match remains for Cittadella in 2023, which will be played at Ascoli on Boxing Day.

PHOTO: AS Cittadella