Milan stand strong with ten men: Napoli beaten, top spot shared | OneFootball

The Serie A standings are tightening. After five rounds, the maximum points reached is 12, occupied by Napoli, Milan, and Roma. Contributing to the reshaping of the Italian stage is the fall of Antonio Conte, who on the difficult field of San Siro fails to even snatch a point from an organized and lively Milan, and finds a defeat that he has been missing since last February 23, when, always away from their own stadium, the blues had to leave 3 points to Como.

Serie A, one chair for three: Milan wins and reaches Napoli and Roma

In the first half, with three shots on goal, two of which pierced Alex Meret, Massimiliano Allegri's team manages to outline its boundaries. Napoli appears reshuffled by numerous defensive defections, from Rrahmani to Spinazzola, passing through Buongiorno and Olivera. The goal that puts the Rossoneri ahead comes from an excess of conviction of the blues, who from the first minute try to give a different shock to the match.

Just a counterattack, with Napoli pushed to offensive traction, opens the way for Pulisic, who with his technique overcomes Marianucci in two stages, making his debut from the first minute with Napoli, and stretching the ball opens a prairie for Saelemakers. The Belgian, left free on the second post due to the numerical absence of a defender, completes the action and finds the net with the Milan jersey after two and a half years. After only two minutes, the blues face a big problem. In addition to pre-game uncertainties, tension grows in the legs of Conte's men, besieged after the Rossoneri's lead. However, Napoli's reaction is not late. With stubbornness, the team continues what it had set up from the first minutes, turning the ball and looking for Politano, who in the usual one-on-one duel with Estupinan manages several times to go to the bottom to cross. At the tenth minute, he finds the debutant Gutierrez in the area, but he fails to angle the header, leaving Maignan an easy intervention. Immediately after, the French goalkeeper has to work harder on McTominay's low and powerful conclusion. While Napoli attacks, with the class of Modric and Pulisic, Milan finds prairies in the opposing half of the field, so much so as to touch the 2-0 with Fofana, before the net finally arrives with the American dribbler. The deflection of Juan Jesus leaves no escape to Meret, who concedes the fourth goal in two games.

The first half continues with the same monologue: Napoli phrases on the right and looks for the center of the Rossoneri area, always watched by blue shirts ready to create dangers. And it is precisely in this phase that the blue protest breaks out just over half an hour after the start, when McTominay is hit by Tomori in the area. The action continues without effects, as does the VAR check. However, the Corriere dello Sport comments: "Tomori faces McTominay in a disordered manner, who anticipates him: contact on the left thigh/hip of the blue player, the Rossoneri never takes the ball. Chiffi decides not to decide, the VAR endorses the wrong decision. Here there was a penalty kick." The first half ends with a last blue chance: Politano finds Anguissa, who badly hits the ball, sending it far from the posts defended by Maignan. Despite the result, Napoli shows defensive limits and some concentration breaks, already seen in the previous match against Pisa, while the offense remains effective, albeit not very incisive.

The second half sees the blues return with the same charisma, in search of a goal that can reopen the match. At 53° a light comes on: red for Estupinan. After yet another save by Maignan on McTominay's jump, served by the always incisive blue tightrope walker on the right, Di Lorenzo is stopped by the Ecuadorian full-back, who after the VAR review is expelled. After over six minutes of stopped play, De Bruyne, who had been little involved until then, steps up from the 11 meters. From the spot, the Belgian is relentless, wrong-footing the goalkeeper and scoring the 2-1.

From that moment Napoli struggles to create chances, clashing against a compact Rossoneri wall. Conte's changes, which reflexively also focus on Wednesday's challenge, change the blues' game: McTominay and De Bruyne come out, with the Belgian visibly upset, and shortly after also Hojlund and Politano, losing the man capable of creating superiority on the right. Despite the entry of Neres, Napoli fails to make the same impact, widens and takes more and more field, closing Milan in the last 35 meters.

The last chances come from a distance: Lang tries a dirty right that does not create particular problems for Maignan, followed by a diagonal from Neres from about 20 meters, deflected by Modric and made even more unpredictable, but without luck. In the minutes of recovery, the Brazilian tries again with a similar solution, but less effective.

The challenge ends like this, with Milan maintaining the lead and Napoli failing to find the way to the draw. As on the Autostrada del Sole, Milan and Napoli regroup passing through Rome, with all three teams stuck at four wins and one defeat in the first five rounds. Allegri's team passes the first real test, after the previous consecutive victories with Lecce, Bologna and Udinese, imposing its authority and entering decisively, taking advantage of the only weekly match, in the race for the tricolor. Also noteworthy is the convincing start of Gasperini's men: in Rome he immediately finds the right chemistry, unlike last year in Bergamo, when in the first five rounds he had only collected three points. Even for Napoli, finally, the balance is positive: compared to the past season, Conte immediately puts 12 points in the barn, surpassing the 11 collected in the first five rounds of the previous year.

Andrea Alati

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.