Sport: Osimhen’s hat-trick in seven-goal thriller against Sassuolo
A brilliant Victor Osimhen’s hat-trick helped Napoli secured their first away win since last November as they romped to a 6-1 win against struggling Sassuolo yesterday.
The three goals lifted the Super Eagles striker to the fourth spot in the race for the Serie A best attacker with 11 goals from 15 games with five assists.
While the Neroverdi made their debut under interim coach Bigica, having sacked Alessio Dionisi on Sunday after one win and one draw in 13 competitive matches, Napoli’s Francesco Calzona was still looking for his first win following 1-1 stalemates with Barcelona and Cagliari.
However, Sassuolo took the lead against the run of play when Uros Racic started the move, the acrobatic Andrea Pinamonti attempt was cleared to the edge of the area and Racic finished it with a snooker shot that bent around Alex Meret and back into the far bottom corner.
But soon Napoli got their equaliser and it was a well-worked team goal, as Di Lorenzo found Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa down the right, his inspired back-heel flick set up defender Amir Rrahmani to complete the move by sweeping in from 10 yards.
Under 120 seconds later, Napoli had turned the game around completely. Di Lorenzo again sent someone down the right, this time Matteo Politano, who pulled it back for Osimhen to meet it first time from seven yards.
Kvicha Kvaratskhelia spotted Andrea Consigli off his line and attempted an audacious lob from the centre-circle that was inches over. In trying to scramble back, Consigli accidentally pulled the net off the bar, so the goalkeeper and Osimhen worked together with staff to get it taped back up.
Once play resumed, Napoli added a third goal, as Matheus Henrique was caught in possession in midfield and the Politano slide-rule pass allowed Osimhen to spring the offside trap, beating an on-rushing Consigli.
Osimhen completed his hat-trick straight after the restart thanks to some suicidal defending, as Ruan Tressoldi trying to play it out from the back simply passed it straight to Kvaratskhelia, who rolled across for the Nigerian’s tap-in.
Sassuolo fell to pieces and Napoli added a fifth moments later following another error, Kvaratskhelia running down the left, cutting inside and curling right-footed into the far corner from just inside the box.
Giacomo Raspadori’s cushioned volley on a Kvaratskhelia cross was straight at Consigli, but Kvaratskhelia added another when a corner was flicked on to him, the first attempt was charged down, so he smashed the second into the roof of the net.
