Napoli missed the possibility to go high of Serie A on Sunday after solely managing a goalless draw at lowly Venezia as Juventus slumped deeper into disaster with a 3-0 thumping by the hands of rivals Fiorentina.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli are stage on 61 factors with reigning champions Inter Milan after a largely lacklustre efficiency which with higher ending would have nonetheless been sufficient for victory on the Venetian Lagoon.
Giacomo Raspadori smacked a shot off the publish within the fifth minute on the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo whereas Scott McTominay, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Romelu Lukaku had been all denied by sensible goalkeeping from Ionut Radu.
And substitute Giovanni Simeone wasted an opportunity to grab the three factors for Napoli in stoppage time when he blasted over Noah Okafor’s pinpoint cross from shut vary.
These misses left Napoli with 5 attracts from their final seven league matches, kind which has compromised their bid for a second league crown in three seasons.
“I do not assume they induced us any issues. There was one crew on the pitch that was answerable for the sport, and that was us,” stated Conte to DAZN.
“We did what we had been alleged to do immediately, however if you create so many possibilities it’s important to rating. And the alternatives they’d principally got here from our personal errors.”
Venezia’s efficiency belied their place within the relegation zone, 5 factors behind Parma who sit simply exterior the underside three and drew 1-1 at Monza on Saturday.
The hosts ought to have scored three minutes earlier than the break when Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret charged off his line to disclaim Kike Perez earlier than Amir Rrahmani’s determined goalline clearance from Daniel Fila’s follow-up.
Napoli’s draw presents Atalanta with an awesome alternative to attract stage with the main duo of their mouth-watering conflict with Inter afterward Sunday, as an thrilling three-way race for the Scudetto heads in the direction of its climax.
Atalanta sit three factors off the tempo in third as they search a primary house win in Serie A since earlier than Christmas and their first ever league title.
– Juve disaster –
Juventus and Thiago Motta are in serious trouble after a second heavy defeat is as many weeks, with coach Motta wanting more and more unlikely to nonetheless be in cost come the beginning of subsequent season.
The Turin giants barely laid a glove on eighth-placed Fiorentina who ran riot in entrance of delighted supporters — together with iconic former striker Gabriel Batistuta — on the Stadio Artemio Franchi.
Robin Gosens and Rolando Mandragora put Fiorentina two forward inside 18 minutes earlier than Albert Gudmundsson made positive of the factors seven minutes after the break with a thunderous shot of which Batistuta himself would have been proud.
Nicolo Fagioli, who was unloaded by Juve earlier this 12 months, arrange Mandragora and Gudmundsson’s efforts whereas the wonderful Moise Kean thought he had embarrassed his outdated membership simply earlier than the hour mark earlier than his strike was dominated out for offside.
The character of Sunday’s defeat and the very fact it got here after final weekend’s four-goal house hammering by Atalanta makes Motta’s place precarious, with Italian media reporting forward of the match that he may very well be sacked if Juve had been to be beat in Florence.
To make issues worse for Motta his outdated crew Bologna have moved one level above his present membership into fourth place after a thumping 5-0 win over sixth-placed Lazio, who’re solely some extent behind Juve.
Motta insisted on Saturday that he had the total backing of the Juve hierarchy however Roberto Mancini is reportedly one of many contenders to exchange him if the membership makes the uncommon determination to sack their coach earlier than the top of the present marketing campaign.
Roma are additionally within the hunt for the Champions League after a slender 1-0 win over Cagliari in Rome which eased the ache of being dumped out of the Europa League by Athletic Bilbao.
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