Napoli consolidate their Serie A leadership with victory over Torino, as Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa bagged an early brace before Kvicha Kvaratskhelia on a trademark solo run.
The Partenopei were joint Serie A leaders going into the break for international duty. Victor Osimhen was still out of action, so Giacomo Raspadori started upfront with Matteo Politano recovering from injury in the new Halloween-themed kit. Toro missed Pietro Pellegri, Samuele Ricci and Mergim Vojvoda, but Aleksei Miranchuk returned.
The Granata’s last victory in this stadium was in May 2009, and it took just six minutes to break the deadlock this time, Mario Rui combining with Kvicha Kvaratskhelia on the left to float in a cross for the head of Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa from eight yards.
The midfielder was clearly fired up, as moments later he gathered the ball near the halfway line and ran forward down the right, beating Vanja Milinkovic-Savic at the near post. Anguissa became the first Napoli player to score a brace in the opening 15 minutes of a Serie A game since Daniel Fonseca in January 1994 against Cremonese.
After that horror start, Toro woke up and Alex Meret got down to palm away a Nikola Vlasic daisy-cutter, while Kim Min-jae made two important blocks on Vlasic and Miranchuk.
Sasa Lukic bravely used his face to charge down Piotr Zielinski’s strike and from the corner Amir Rrahmani nodded just wide.
Napoli added a third goal when Zielinski flicked it on for Kvaratskhelia to gather inside his own half, run down the left and hold off Lukic, stroking the left-foot finish across the face of goal and in off the far post.
Toro did get one back before half-time, Wilfried Singo’s attempt turning into an accidental assist for Antonio Sanabria to smash through Alex Meret’s gloves from close range.
Sanabria almost had another on the stroke of half-time, his header skimming the far stick, and Torino started the second half very aggressively.
Raspadori had penalty appeals waved away, as he seemed to run into Lukic more than the other way around. Torino coach Ivan Juric was sent off for dissent after he was physically restrained by assistant manager Matteo Paro.
Toro refused to give up and Meret flew to palm the Nemanja Radonjic scorcher out from under the bar, while Milinkovic-Savic did the same on Hirving Lozano.
Napoli 3-1 Torino
Anguissa 6, 12 (N), Kvaratskhelia 37 (N), Sanabria 43 (T)