Five-star performance for Napoli’s Osimhen over Udinese
Napoli made short work of Udinese with five well-taken goals, including a Fabian Ruiz curler and Hirving Lozano strike, to consolidate their top four spot.
The Partenopei had climbed into fourth place at the weekend and weren’t going to take this for granted, having dropped points in a home draw with Cagliari. Kalidou Koulibaly, Nikola Maksimovic, Faouzi Ghoulam and Stanislav Lobotka missed out, while the Friulani were without Bram Nuytinck, Tolgay Arslan, Gerard Deulofeu, Ilija Nestorovski, Ignacio Pussetto and Jayden Braaf.
Lorenzo Insigne stung Juan Musso’s gloves from distance, but it took until the 28th minute to break through with a well-worked team goal.##”
Piotr Zielinski and Victor Osimhen combined, the Nigerian turned his defender with ease and the shot was parried by Musso, who could do nothing on the Pole’s follow-up.
Moments later, Osimhen again went clear and it took a desperate Kevin Bonfazi block to deflect it over from 12 yards.
Napoli doubled their lead within three minutes and Zielinski was involved again, pulling back for Fabian Ruiz, who from the edge of the area picked his spot for a simply perfect left-foot curler into the far top corner.
After Insigne and Lozano efforts off target, Udinese were caught passing it around in their own final third too sluggishly, Osimhen pressed Musso into an error and Lozano pounced quicker than De Paul to fire in.
Thomas Ouwejan skimmed the crossbar with his wayward cross-shot, while Musso fingertipped an Osimhen scorcher over the bar.
read also:Real Madrid join race for Fiorentina striker Vlahovic
On the resulting corner, Musso parried a Kostas Manolas header and Giovanni Di Lorenzo reacted quicker than anyone else on the rebound.
Insigne was unlucky not to get in on the act when his scorcher smashed against the point where the crossbar meets the upright. The captain did get his goal eventually, as Matteo Politano’s effort was deflected, he controlled with his chest and thumped it first-time into the bottom corner.