Napoli thrashed Frosinone 5-1 away to go top of Serie A yesterday after previous leaders Inter Milan were sunk by a Domenico Berardi penalty in the fifth minute of injury time in a 1-0 home defeat against modest Sassuolo. A win for Napoli would put them a full three points clear of Fiorentina, and at worst they’d have a one-point edge on third place depending on other results – just as long as they win, of course.
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Nevertheless, the coach backed his current crop of forwards and cast doubt on mooted moves for Paris Saint-Germain’s Ezequiel Lavezzi and Dries Mertens – whose Napoli team-mates were poised to replace Inter at the Serie A summit if they avoided defeat at Frosinone on Sunday.
Franco Vazquez provided the solitary strike that led Palermo to the three points on the road.
Roberto Mancini’s men welcomed Sassuolo looking to build on last week’s 1-0 win at Empoli, which kept the Inter top with a one-point lead over Fiorentina and Napoli.
“I don’t know of any squad that has ever won the Scudetto by January, but we still hope that we can achieve this goal”.
It was one-way traffic in Frosinone as the visitors ran five past the hosts.
“I’m the only one who’s been consistent in saying that, even when Juve were down near the bottom of the table, they would come fighting back with a series of wins and that’s what they’re doing”.
Barely 60 seconds later, Higuain muscled his way through two defenders to beat Zappino down low as the ‘keeper came rushing out to block.
Higuain doubled Napoli’s lead from the penalty spot on the half-hour and claimed his second in two insane, second-half minutes that saw captain Marek Hamsik on target. Instead we took zero points when we had to take many more.
“It means nothing to be Winter Champions, it’s not worth anything”, Higuain told Sky Sport Italia.
“They’ve won four titles in four years, so you could say they’ve got something extra we don’t”, he said.
Sassuolo coach Eusebio Di Francesco responded: “I don’t think it’s right to reduce the outcome of this game to one episode and I don’t want to talk too much about refereeing decisions”.
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Berardi made no mistake from the penalty spot, firing over the body of Slovenian “keeper Samir Handanovic to secure a famous win for Sassuolo, who leapfrog AC Milan into sixth place to sit eight points off the pace”.
