{"id":11262,"date":"2023-01-21T22:14:12","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T22:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=11262"},"modified":"2023-01-21T22:14:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T22:14:12","slug":"french-super-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=11262","title":{"rendered":"Osimhen Scores As Napoli See off Salernitana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Napoli further extended their grip on the Serie A title race on Saturday by beating local rivals Salernitana 2-0 to temporarily move 12 points ahead of the chasing pack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Goals from Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Victor Osimhen immediately either side of half-time made sure that Napoli will be at least nine points clear at the halfway point of the season after a straight-forward win in soaking Salerno.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Luciano Spalletti\u2019s side now have to wait until their closest rivals AC Milan take on Champions League-chasing Lazio in Rome on Tuesday to know just how far in front they will be after collecting 50 points in 19 matches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Inter Milan are a further point behind their local rivals and will move provisionally into second place if they beat Empoli on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Napoli do not have to worry about Juventus who had been ahead of Inter on goal difference but were docked 15 points on Friday for illicit use of transfers to boost their balance sheet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Save the ruling being overturned on appeal later this year, Juve are out of the race, making Napoli\u2019s bid for a first league crown since 1990 that much simpler.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Salernitana are winless in seven matches and sit 16th on 18 points, six in front of Verona who are just inside the relegation zone after beating Lecce 2-0 earlier on Saturday to continue their recovery under new coach Marco Zaffaroni.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The hosts were also playing under a new manager of sorts as Davide Nicola took his place on the bench at the Stadio Arechi after being sacked on Monday and then brought back in less than 48 hours later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Nicola\u2019s team huffed and puffed but once Di Lorenzo broke their resistance with a precision finish from Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa\u2019s low pass in first-half stoppage time there was only going to be one winner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Napoli made the short trip to Salerno without Khvicha Kvaratskhelia who usually flanks Osimhen, but the Nigeria forward is in unstoppable form and netted his league-leading 13th of the season two minutes after the break.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Kvaratskhelia\u2019s replacement Eljif Elmas cut inside and then let off a low shot which bounce back off the post and straight to Osimhen, who gobbled up the chance to double Napoli\u2019s lead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Napoli had one scare with seven minutes remaining when Alex Meret did superbly well to tip Krzysztof Piatek\u2019s low drive onto the post, and that save made sure of a potentially huge three points for a team who are seemingly having everything their way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Napoli further extended their grip on the Serie A title race on Saturday by beating local rivals Salernitana 2-0 to temporarily move 12 points ahead of the chasing pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5397,6207,1451],"class_list":["post-11262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-napoli","tag-salernitana","tag-serie-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11264,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11262\/revisions\/11264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}