Napoli demolished Liverpool 4-1 despite Alisson saving a Victor Osimhen penalty, as Piotr Zielinski scored twice, Zambo Anguissa and Giovanni Simeone were on target with Kvicha Kvaratskhelia unstoppable.
The Partenopei were able to start Osimhen despite a muscular issue, but Mario Rui had gastroenteritis and Hirving Lozano wasn’t fully fit after a clash of heads. Last season’s finalists made the trip without Jordan Henderson, Ibrahima Konaté, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita, Calvin Ramsay, Caoimhin Kelleher, Fabio Carvalho and Curtis Jones, while Thiago Alcantara was back on the bench after a month out.
It was almost the perfect start, as in the second minute Osimhen got to a ball over the top before Alisson Becker, got around the goalkeeper, but then narrowed the angle too much and could only hit the near post.
Moments later, Piotr Zielinski’s shot was deflected just wide by James Milner’s very wide arm, spotted by the referee for a penalty that the Poland international converted.
It was constant swarming from the Napoli players, who earned another penalty when Virgil van Dijk was late on Osimhen and stamped on his foot, the decision this time given after a VAR review. This time Osimhen wanted to take it and it was parried by former Roma goalkeeper Alisson.
Alex Meret fingertipped a Trent Alexander-Arnold free kick over the bar, but it should’ve been 2-0 when Osimhen sprung the offside trap, pulled back for Kvaratskhelia, who was denied by a desperate Van Dijk goal-line clearance.
The second goal did come, as Kvaratskhelia caught Gomez in possession to spark a counter, as Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa completed a give and go with Zielinski to carve the Liverpool defence apart.
The visitors did fight back, Van Dijk’s header into the ground parried and Harvey Elliott turning wide at the back post.
Osimhen had been in doubt with a muscular problem and pulled up mid-run to be replaced by Giovanni Simeone before half-time.
It proved an inspired change, because within three minutes of his Champions League debut, Simeone was on the scoresheet. He was in the right place to prod in from six yards after Kvaratskhelia turned both Gomez and Alexander-Arnold inside out to roll across.
Within moments of the restart, Napoli had their fourth, as Alisson made the save from point-blank range on Zielinski, who dinked the rebound over him.
Liverpool scored their first ever goal on Neapolitan soil in their fourth visit, as Luis Diaz cut inside Anguissa and curled into the far bottom corner.
It still wasn’t over, as Luis Diaz’s bullet header was palmed out from under the bar by Meret and Alessio Zerbi went for goal when he should’ve passed.
Napoli 4-1 Liverpool
Zielinski pen 5, 48 (N), Anguissa 31 (N), Simeone 44 (N), Luis Diaz 49 (L)
Saved penalty: Osimhen 18 (N)
Liverpool is the best and EPL is the best and sqeauky clean, honest, and full of integrity.
EPL is the best league in UE(PL)FA
English people talk about the slow pace in Serie A. Liverpool couldn’t cope with the pace and technique of the Napoli players.
They were right after all. Liverpool got as.saulted in Naples.
English people talk about the slow pace in Serie A. Liverpool couldn’t cope with the pace and technique of the Napoli players!
Well done Napoli.
Nice to beat the overrated epl team.
Fantastic game by Napoli. And some hope that Italian teams can actually fight it out with the so called unbeatable teams. Through the pre match interviews I knew Napoli were well prepared with a precise idea. Problem with Italian teams in Europe is that they are always too fearful and so much praising the opponent to a point that some teams/coaches give up in getting anything even before trying. You could see they always have bad start to the game and conceding first before shaking off the fear at some point and believing more.. Aften a bit too late. And in Europe Italian teams should learn how to effectively press high up as that’s one very important element of modern football. Be bold. That was a really proud display by Spalletti’s boys.
Congratulations to Napoli for the splendid win. Incredible stuff indeed!
Congrats to Napoli…everybody was on fire today and hungry for the win
What a big win and I hope we continue in this thread especially as we play Milan soon
Forza Napoli sempre
Finally some success for an italian team in Europe.. Keep it up
Liverpool football club insulting a whole city in the build up to the game provided that extra spice. The scousers posting their splendidly ironic warnings on twitter accusing the people of Naples of being violent thieves resulted in some glorious blowback. Liverpool were destroyed by a hyper motivated squad and the PL side had no answers to the speed and intensity of the Italians game plan.