Napoli still team to beat under new man Garcia

It is early days in Italy's Serie A and champions Napoli are already on maximum points, but they face last season's runners-up Lazio on Saturday in new manager Rudi Garcia's first real test.

Last season, not even the runaway title winners won their opening three fixtures. Now, with wins over Frosinone and Sassuolo under their belt, Garcia is looking to improve on Luciano Spalletti's impressive time at the club.

Spalletti has since taken over the Italy national side, but Garcia inherited a mostly unchanged squad. Defender Kim Min-jae was sold to Bayern Munich, but they held onto Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

Osimhen was the top scorer in Serie A last season with 26 goals and has already scored three goals this campaign. Kvaratskhelia was voted the league's best player in his first season in Italy.

Garcia was replaced by Spalletti on the AS Roma bench mid-season back in 2016. Before that, the French manager had never lost a derby game with Lazio and will now be expected to defeat Maurizio Sarri's struggling side.

Lazio may have finished 16 points adrift of Napoli last season, but they were one of only two teams to come away from the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with a win.

After finishing second, losses to a Lecce side which battled relegation last season and at home to promoted Genoa was not how this season was meant to begin for Lazio.

Sarri, however, was adamant that his team had shown improvement even in defeat.

"Two completely different matches. The one in Lecce was a game of apathy, this one (Genoa) we approached badly because of repercussions that the previous game left us," Sarri explained after the game on Sunday.

"In the end, we played a good game, we didn't give up... in some respects it's a huge step