Pulisic’s early goal and 10th in the Italian league surpassed his previous best of nine in the 2019-20 English Premier League for Chelsea. He also has three goals in Europe and had already bettered his overall scoring record.
Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leão also scored against Lecce, who played the entire second half with 10 men after forward Nikola Krstović was sent off.
Milan could even afford to ring the changes in the second half with Thursday’s Europa League quarter-final against Roma in mind. Roma beat Lazio 1-0 in the capital derby later on Saturday.
Second-placed Milan trimmed the gap to runaway Serie A leaders Inter Milan to 11 points ahead of the Nerazzurri’s match at Udinese on Monday.
Lecce remained four points above the drop zone.
On a sunny Saturday at San Siro, Samuel Chukwueze beat two defenders before finding Pulisic on the edge of the area. The American controlled the ball and unleashed an unstoppable left-footed strike.
That was with less than six minutes on the clock. Pulisic then almost doubled his tally immediately, but Lecce goalkeeper Wladimiro Falcone parried the header from point-blank range.
Milan got the second in the 20th when Yacine Adli whipped in a corner from the left and Giroud headed it in at the near post.
Lecce almost pulled one back, but Joan González’s header came off the crossbar and the visitors’ chances diminished on the stroke of halftime when Krstović was shown a straight red card for a high tackle on Chukwueze.
Milan sealed the match in the 57th after Leão raced onto a Théo Hernandez through ball and fired it into the bottom right corner.
AAP
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