MY ACCOUNT
– Napoli lead Serie A by seven points, scoring an impressive 39 goals in 17 matches
– Juventus’ eye-catching winning run masks some underwhelming performances
– Recommended bet: Napoli to win
Juventus’ off-field issues have not affected their form on the pitch and a run of eight successive league victories has sent the Turin giants up to second in Serie A.
And while injuries undermined Massimiliano Allegri’s team in the early weeks of 2022-23, key men are now returning. Attackers Federico Chiesa and Angel Di Maria are back in action, while Paul Pogba and Dusan Vlahovic should soon join them to bolster the 36-time champions.
However, supporters of The Old Lady will know this trip to Naples is a crucial match in their attempt to reclaim the scudetto.
Hosts Napoli slipped up at Inter Milan upon their return from the World Cup break, but bounced back with victory at Sampdoria to retain a seven-point gap at the top of the Italian top flight.
Prior to that loss in Milan, a breath-taking Napoli side were starting to look unstoppable having remained unbeaten in their first 15 league games of 2022-23 amid a flurry of goals.
Victory over their closest challengers could send Napoli 10 points clear and would be a massive step towards their first league title since the days of Diego Maradona. But defeat would see Juve cutting their lead to just four points, making this a massive clash at the summit of Serie A.
Team news
Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti has a fully-fit squad to choose from but his opposite number still has a number of injury concerns.
Pogba and Vlahovic are both back in training but remain a couple of weeks from returning to the first-team squad and attacker Juan Cuadrado and centre-back Leonardo Bonucci are also not expected to return until towards the end of the month.
Centre-back Gleison Bremer and right-back Mattia De Sciglio both have an outside chance of recovering from recent injuries in time for this crucial trip to Naples.
The stats
Napoli are top of Serie A despite all five of their meetings with fellow top-seven rivals having come away from home. Luciano Spalletti’s men have won away at AC Milan, Lazio, Atalanta and Roma and have dropped points on only one occasion — last week’s 1-0 loss at Inter Milan.
That defeat to Inter was also the only occasion in which Napoli have dropped points in their last 13 Serie A outings — they scored an average of 2.42 goals per game in winning each of the other 12.
The Azzurri have a strong recent record at home against Juventus, beating them in each of their last three meetings at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium — and they drew the reverse fixture in Turin last term, too.
Juventus arrive on the back of eight-successive wins to nil, but each of their four away victories in that run came against teams placed 10th or lower in the league — and all four matches ended only 1-0.
Juve’s only trip to a top-eight side thus far ended in a 2-0 defeat at AC Milan and Allegri’s side also lost all three Champions League away games this season to crash out at the group stage.
Prediction
After an injury-ravaged start to the season, Juventus are clearly improving, but this trip to Naples could end their recent run of victories.
Most of their successes in that sequence have come against opponents they would expect to beat and, while Juve did also overcome Inter in that run, they were fortunate to do so.
Inter had more possession, more shots, more shots on target and a higher expected goals rating than Allegri’s hosts but could not get the goals their play deserved, ending up unlucky 2-0 losers.
A Napoli side who have scored an impressive 39 goals in 17 Serie A outings this term — and 20 goals in six Champions League games — should not be as wasteful at home as Inter were in Turin, so over 2.5 goals looks a decent addition to any Bet Builder selections.
That firepower should help Spalletti’s side outgun a Juve team who are slightly flattered by their recent eight-match winning run, so back Napoli to win, which is available at 10/11 with LiveScore Bet.
