Lorenzo Insigne was inspirational with a goal and assist for the last-gasp Fabian Ruiz winner, as Napoli beat Maurizio Sarri’s Lazio 2-1 to go joint top of the table with Milan.
Both teams crashed out of the Europa League on Thursday night, to FC Porto and Barcelona respectively, so could only focus on Serie A from now on. The hosts had Luis Alberto and Lucas Leiva back from bans, but Pedro not 100 per cent fit. Hirving Lozano, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Axel Tuanzebe were out of action for the Partenopei, who could go joint top with Milan if they won here.
Luis Alberto really should’ve opened the scoring after six minutes, but turned wide after Felipe Anderson rolled across from the right, with Ciro Immobile doing the same under pressure from Giovanni Di Lorenzo.
Serie A Liveblog: Torino-Cagliari, Verona-Venezia, Spezia-Roma, Lazio-Napoli
Immobile’s curler shaved a coat of paint off the crossbar, while Thomas Strakosha got down to beat away a wickedly bending Piotr Zielinski daisy-cutter and Adam Marusic did enough to prevent Osimhen meeting Lorenzo Insigne’s assist.
Insigne cut inside Marusic only to see his right-foot curler charged down by Luiz Felipe, then Ospina was alert on Milinkovic-Savic from close range.
There was a big Lazio chance after the restart, as Ospina beat away the Felipe Anderson strike and Kalidou Koulibaly made a decisive clearance to stop Luis Alberto tapping in the rebound.
The deadlock was finally broken by Napoli on the hour mark, as their high press forced a poor clearance, so Insigne hit it hard and low from outside the box into the bottom corner with his trusty right foot. It was his first Serie A goal from open play this season.
They nearly doubled their lead on a corner, flicked on by Amir Rrahmani and Stefan Radu clearing before Eljif Elmas could tap in.
Insigne did have the ball in the back of the net again a few minutes later, but he was offside when turning in the rebound from a save on Osimhen.
Strakosha did just enough to deny Politano on the counter-attack, while Ospina flew to parry an absolutely ferocious long-range Pedro screamer with his trailing hand.
Ospina was also fortunate when Mario Rui rather too calmly chested the ball back to his goalkeeper and Pedro almost pounced.
However, there was simply nothing Ospina could do for the equaliser, as a free kick was cleared to the edge of the area for Pedro to hit a sensational left-foot volley.
Napoli wouldn’t give in, Ospina’s strike deflected off Luiz Felipe to go wide, but deep into stoppages Eljif Elmas surged forward, spread the play for Insigne, who intelligently laid it off for Fabian Ruiz to put his left foot through it from the D to hit the bottom corner. The celebrations were wild at the Stadio Olimpico, as this goal put the Partenopei joint top of the table with Milan ahead of next week’s head-to-head.
Lazio 1-2 Napoli
Insigne 63 (N), Pedro 88 (L), Fabian Ruiz 94 (N)
Inter the winter champions are third.
Lol
Ospina should have scored
Trully and fully deserved Victory hope they can win serie A it would be a reward for Napoli and de Laurentiss for trully being an example for running a club while keeping books in check and balance
Finally, great show of character and determination by Napoli. This has to be the norm, not the exception.