"Three touches, three goals — that is what he does"

"Three touches, three goals — that is what he does," Davide Aprile said of Mauro Tognon after Brescia's 4-0 win over Empoli Football Club, and the winger had the best view in the house.

Tognon scored three, took five shots and put three on target, and his display earned him the day's top rating. What pleased me more was the shape of the thing: Brescia held 52% of the ball, completed 480 of 531 passes and never let the game run loose. Empoli managed one shot on target and not a single corner. Clean sheets start with that kind of control, and so do hat-tricks.

The match turned on discipline. Empoli had already collected four yellow cards — San Martín inside four minutes, Salsano, Alba — when Antonio Alba was sent off in the 43rd minute. Patricio Chiellini followed him down the tunnel at the end of the half. Nine men, two goals behind, and a defence that had spent forty-five minutes chasing: there was only one way this was going to finish.

Aprile was everywhere, with a goal and two assists, four tackles won and more ground covered than anyone on the pitch. Riccardo Santi and Rodrigo Gonçalves kept the ball moving and kept Empoli running. But the afternoon belonged to the man up front, and to a Brescia side that understood the value of patience.

This was Brescia's answer to the derby defeat by Atalanta earlier in September, when Riccardo Grimaudo settled it late. A club that has known better days knows how quickly a good run can curdle. Tognon's finishing is the kind of certainty a season is built on, and a defence that gives up so little gives the forwards the freedom to be ruthless.

Empoli will look at the cards and the shape of their selection — Salsano out of position at left-back, Thomas Martelli held back until the 57th minute — and wonder how much of this was self-inflicted. Brescia will simply note that the striker scored three and the team conceded none. That is the arithmetic I trust.