Fabio Quagliarella's hat-trick helped Juventus crush Pescara 6-1 today to bounce back superbly from losing their unbeaten record to arch-rivals Inter last week.
Goals from Arturo Vidal, Sebastian Giovinco and Kwadwo Asamoah added to the margin of victory for the champions who climbed to 31 points at the top of Serie A, four ahead of Inter who face a tricky match at Atalanta tomorrow.
"It feels good, it's my first ever hat-trick, that's always a good thing, but the important thing was to win, we won really well," Quagliarella told reporters.
"Inter is in the past, after a defeat you have to come back even stronger. We have to continue to work like we always have done, work on the errors we committed against Inter and now I think we've got back into our stride."
Juventus took the lead through Vidal after only nine minutes, the midfielder ending a slick passing move by bursting past his forwards before collecting Sebastian Giovinco's through ball and thumping it across Mattia Perin in the Pescara goal.
The league leaders could have doubled their lead two minutes later when Fabio Quagliarella's quick turn just outside the area was finished with the striker firing a whisker wide of the post.
However, 10 minutes later the striker, starting in place of misfiring Mirko Vucinic, notched his first goal when he took Mauricio Isla's pass on the edge of the area and hit a smart drive in the exact same spot as Vidal.
Pescara did not let their heads drop, though, even after Juan Quintero hit the post with a terrific free kick just a minute after the champions' second, and they pulled a goal back on 25 minutes when Emmanuel Cascione guided a header past Ganluigi Buffon.
Both sides were playing on the front foot and though Pescara were a threat, it was Antonio Conte's side who restored their two-goal lead five minutes later, Kwadwo Asamoah meeting Quagliarella's backheel with a stunning scissor kick.
Any resistance from Pescara was extinquished and Giovinco added to Juve's lead with another beautiful goal, playing a one-two with Quagliarella and hitting his strike partner's pin-point chipped pass hard into Perin's right-hand corner.
Quagliarella made sure the match was effectively over in first half stoppage time, again firing low and hard to Perin's right, but Juventus were in no mood to take their foot off the pedal.
The striker completed his hat-trick eight minutes into the second half with his best goal of the night, meeting Andrea Pirlo's corner full on the volley with a bicycle kick, rounding off his night and an impressive win for the champions.
In today's earlier game, Cagliari and Catania played out an uneventful 0-0 draw in Serie A on Saturday amid more stadium controversy for the Sardinian side.
They thought they would be playing in front of a newly-completely open Is Arenas but an emergency meeting among local authorities led to the stadium's main stand being closed.
The club, however, opened access to the stand for reporters, prompting fears that they might suffer further sanctions from the Serie A or the football federation having been handed a 3-0 defeat by the league for their postponed match against Roma.
On the pitch it was Cagliari who came closest to snatching the three points, first when Marco Sau rounded Mariano Andujar in the Catania goal only for him save the resulting shot and then seeing his header from the resulting corner somehow kept out by the keeper.
Sau again could only produce an air shot when presented with a chance in the six-yard box only a minute into the second half and that was as good as it good for either side.