Luciano Spalletti and Napoli will be without Serie A’s top goalscorer in Victor Osimhen for Sunday evening’s game against Stefano Pioli’s Milan on Sunday evening, but that won’t necessarily be a bad omen for the Partenopei.
Osimhen was ruled out of the top four clash at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona after picking up a muscular injury while away with Nigeria during the international break.
The prolific centre-forward is expected to be in contention to return by the time Napoli and Milan meet again in the Champions League quarter-final next week.
This will not be the first time this season, however, that Spalletti has been without Osimhen, who has missed seven games across all competitions through injury.
In fact, Napoli have won all seven of the games that Osimhen has not been involved in this season, including in the reverse fixture against Milan at San Siro back in September.
Napoli’s wins without Osimhen include four in the league against Spezia, the aforementioned Milan, Torino and Cremonese, as well as against Rangers (twice) and Ajax in the Champions League.
Giovanni Simeone will deputise in the Osimhen’s absence, as he has done on all seven of the previous occasions the Nigerian was sidelined, and will hope to be looking to his impressive record across those games.
With a goal against Ajax and a brace against Rangers in the Champions League as well as goals against La Cremo and Milan in the reverse fixture in Serie A, Simeone has five goals from seven games during which Osimhen has not featured.