Soccer-Five talking points from the Serie A weekend

Juventus beat AC Milan 2-1 but were forced to wait at least another week to celebrate their eighth successive Serie A title after second-placed Napoli drew 1-1 at home to 10-man Genoa. The following are talking points from the weekend's Serie A action:

VAR FAILS TO RESOLVE REFEREEING INCONSISTENCIES The VAR system is still struggling to deal with the inconsistent application of the rules, especially concerning handball.

On Saturday, AC Milan were denied a penalty in the first half of their match when Juventus full back Alex Sandro went sliding in to block Hakan Calhanoglu's cross at close range and the referee awarded a corner. A close look at the replay showed that the ball had struck the defender's elbow, but was the Brazilian deliberately making his body bigger and was it intentional?

The referee gave Juventus the benefit of the doubt and in doing so respected the VAR protocol, which says the system should only be used to correct a "clear and obvious" mistake. SASSUOLO NOT SO LUCKY

In Sassuolo's game against Lazio 24 hours later, however, Manuel Locatelli was not so lucky. Sassuolo's Locatelli slid in to block a Gil Patric cross, the ball hit his hip and rebounded onto his hand --- and the referee awarded a penalty. The whistler confirmed his decision after a VAR review which, as in the Juventus-Milan game, took nearly four minutes.

"The guidelines say that if the ball ricochets off another part of the body and then touches the arm, it is not handball or a penalty. This was a clear error," said Sassuolo coach Roberto De Zerbi. Ciro Immobile converted the penalty. The game ended 2-2.

GENOA COACH ALSO CALLS FOR CONSISTENCY VAR proved more useful in Genoa's match against Napoli.

Genoa midfielder Stefano Sturaro was initially given a yellow card for a high tackle on Allan during their 1-1 draw. The referee was then alerted by the video assistant and after quickly consulting the pitch-side monitor changed the card to a red. Even so, Genoa coach Cesare Prandelli complained of a lack of consistency by referees.

"If you can tell me that all studs-up challenges will be shown a straight red card, I’ll accept that. The problem is we want to see consistency in decisions," he said. FROSINONE MAKE A SMALL SLICE OF HISTORY

Next-to-bottom Frosinone won back-to-back Serie A matches for the first time thanks to a shock 1-0 win at Fiorentina, which came four days after they beat Parma 3-2 The club are in the second Serie A season of their 107-year history, having been relegated on their debut in 2015-16 when they won eight out of 38 games.

This time around they have won five out of 31 and are again facing the drop although Sunday's win cut the gap between themselves and Empoli, the lowest team outside the danger zone, to five points. "There is still a lot of work to do but we won’t give up," said coach Marco Baroni. "We know it’s tough and we cannot afford any slip-ups but it doesn’t hurt to dream."

NAPOLI PLAYER LIES ON GROUND BEHIND DEFENSIVE WALL Napoli midfielder Allan lay on the ground behind his team's defensive wall during the match against Genoa -- a novel way of trying to defend a potential 'under-the-wall' free kick.

(Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Peter Rutherford peter.rutherford@thomsonreuters.com; +822 3704 5698 Reuters Messaging: peter.rutherford.reuters.com@reuters.net;)