Napoli miss out on Serie A summit, troubled Juve hammered by Fiorentina
Napoli missed the chance to go top of Serie A on Sunday after only managing a goalless draw at lowly Venezia as Juventus slumped deeper into crisis with a 3-0 thumping at the hands of rivals Fiorentina.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli are level on 61 points with reigning champions Inter Milan after a largely lacklustre performance, which with better finishing would have still been enough for victory on the Venetian Lagoon.
Giacomo Raspadori smacked a shot off the post in the fifth minute at the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo while Scott McTominay, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Romelu Lukaku were all denied by smart goalkeeping from Ionut Radu.
And substitute Giovanni Simeone wasted a chance to snatch the three points for Napoli in stoppage time when he blasted over Noah Okafor’s pinpoint cross from close range.
Those misses left Napoli with five draws from their last seven league matches, which has compromised their bid for a second league crown in three seasons.
“I don’t think they caused us any problems. There was one team on the pitch that was in charge of the game, and that was us,” said Conte to DAZN.
“We did what we were supposed to do today, but when you create so many chances, you have to score. And the opportunities they had mostly came from our own errors.”
Venezia’s performance belied their position in the relegation zone, five points behind Parma who sit just outside the bottom three and drew 1-1 at Monza on Saturday.
The hosts should have scored three minutes before the break when Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret charged off his line to deny Kike Perez before Amir Rrahmani’s desperate goalline clearance from Daniel Fila’s follow-up.
Napoli’s draw presents Atalanta with a great opportunity to draw level with the leading duo in their