Napoli defeated ten-man Lazio 4-2 at the Stadio San Paolo on Sunday afternoon in Serie A.
Senad Lulic gave the visitors the lead midway through the first half but a thunderbolt from Dries Mertens and a hat-trick from Gonzalo Higuain following Lorik Cana’s sending off was enough to see off Edy Reja’s men despite a late goal from Ogenyi Onazi.
The opening stages of the game were largely uneventful but the first chance of note fell to Lazio’s Stefano Mauri who hit a right footed half-volley wide of Pepe Reina’s goal following a cross from Antonio Candreva.
The visitors then made the breakthrough after 21 minutes when a couple of clever passes ended with Lulic expertly turning Raul Albiol on the right-hand side of the box and hitting a right-footed shot across the Napoli goalkeeper into the bottom corner.
Napoli responded as former Lazio man Goran Pandev poked the ball through to Higuain on the left side of the box, only for the Argentine to see his curling shot tipped wide by goalkeeper Etrit Berisha.
The Biancocelesti went straight up the other end and almost doubled their lead after Felipe Anderson easily snuck past Dries Mertens and forced Reina to save with his feet from a tight angle.
Napoli then began to put their opponents under pressure as Valon Behrami drilled a left-footed shot over, before Insigne hit a dipping half-volley also over the crossbar.
The Vesuviani finally made their pressure count just before half-time when out of nothing Belgian playmaker Dries Mertens crept inside past a couple of Lazio challenges and fizzed a superb right-footed shot into the top corner from 25 yards to pull the hosts level.
Just before the break tensions threatened to boil over when Cristian Ledesma pushed over Mertens to retrieve the ball for a throw, resulting in a scuffle involving players from both side and yellow cards for Ledesma and Mertens.
The deciding moment of the game came just after half-time when an exchange of passes between Mertens and Higuain resulting in the former being brought down by Cana for a penalty to Napoli and a second yellow card for the Albanian defender, reducing the visitors to ten men.
Higuain then converted the spot-kick into the bottom left corner past Berisha who had dived the right way but couldn’t get a hand to it.
Lazio began to calm things down and grow back into the game before Higuain looked to have made the points safe for Napoli.
A looped ball by Insigne was won in the air by the former Real Madrid man who managed to get on the end of his own flick-on to fire over the goalkeeper and into the net.
The 26-year-old striker should have had his hat-trick straight from the restart when he found himself again one-on-one with Berisha after a ball through from Pandev only for the Albanian stopper to make a strong save.
In the 82nd minute Lazio gave their hosts reason to worry as Onazi escaped the attentions of Miguel Britos and saw his shot squirm under Reina before following in at the second attempt to make it 3-2.
Helder Postiga saw a goal correctly ruled out for offside in the 89th minute but Higuain completed his hat-trick to finally make the game safe for Napoli in stoppage time when he latched onto the end of a bouncing ball and held off the challenge of the Lazio defender to once again lift the ball over the goalkeeper and into the net.
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