Victor Osimhen scored his first hat trick in club football, while Alex Meret earned his third straight clean sheet, as Napoli picked up their 13th consecutive victory in all competitions. With the 4-0 win, the Partenopei moved six points clear of AC Milan, who play against Torino on Sunday. Here are four takeaways selected by Forza Napoli Press.
Victor Erutta
Victor Osimhen scored his fifth, sixth and seventh goals of the Serie A campaign. With the tripletta, Osimhen moved to the top of the Serie A goalscorer’s charts, level with Marko Arnautovic, despite misses four matches due to injury. It was the Nigerian’s first hat trick in Serie A – in fact, it was his first hat trick in club football – after scoring five braces over the past two seasons. The first was goal that only a player with the length and flexibility of Osimhen could score. While Kvaratskhelia deserves most of the credit for the second, Osimhen showed his intelligence by retreating a few steps to better position himself for the shot. Finally, the third confirmed that Osimhen is not all pace, but has a bit of finesse in him as well, as he showed with the goal against Roma. Victor’s third of the match was Napoli’s 30th goal in Serie A and 50th goal in all competitions.
Playing in Spaces, Instead of Positions
Once again, Luciano Spalletti’s team showed that his players do not play in fixed positions, especially Khvicha Kvaratkhelia. Kvara often drifted into the middle (or even the right side) of the park, creating a numerical advantage for Napoli. Neither of Kvaratskhelia’s assists were from his slated left wing. The first was a header in the middle of the area. On Osimhen’s second, the Georgian started on the left wing, but worked his way horizontally across the pitch and eventually passed to Osimhen from the right side of the area.
Similarly, Napoli’s full backs create a numerical advantage with their marauding runs forward on the wings. Mario Rui and Giovanni Di Lorenzo constantly pushed forward, while their respective wingers shifted into the middle. In his post-match press conference, Alessio Dionisi acknowledged that, with Mario Rui and Kvaratskhelia both pushing forward, right back Jeremy Toljan could do nothing but retreat.
Go Long
It’s well known that Napoli are a team who thrive on ball possession and like to build out from the back. However, Napoli demonstrated in this match that they can also beat opponents with the long ball, especially when Victor Osimhen is in the squad.
Unlike many of Napoli’s opponents, particularly those near the bottom of the table, Sassuolo did not defend in the low block. Napoli countered by constantly playing the ball over the top, stretching Sassuolo and therefore creating space in the midfield. The Azzurri’s first and third goals both began with the long ball.
On the first, Kim Min-jae played the long ball to Giovanni Di Lorenzo, who did brilliantly to get to the ball and cross it into the area. The third goal came from a long ball by Mario Rui – already his sixth assist of the season. Kvaratskhelia needed only two touches to score his eighth goal in all competitions, to go along with eight assists.
Early Leads
For the seventh time in all competitions, Napoli took a 2+ goal lead into the break. Though Spalletti has managed his squad well between matches, closing matches in the first half has allowed the Napoli manager to rotate his squad during matches as well.
André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, who returned from a muscle injury suffered against Ajax on October 12th, played only 56 minutes before being replaced by Tanguy Ndombele. Piotr Zielinski, who wasn’t at his best on Saturday, was replaced by Eljif Elmas at the same time. For the second consecutive match, both Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Stanislav Lobotka were afforded a few minutes of rest late in the match. In all likelihood, Anguissa, Zielinski, Lobotka and Di Lorenzo, along with Matteo Politano and Mathias Olivera, who didn’t feature at all against Sassuolo, will start against Liverpool on Tuesday.
