Napoli claimed a 5-2 victory over Legia Warsaw at the Stadio San Paolo on Thursday night, claiming their sixth win out of six in the Europa League this season as the group stages came to a close.
Nathaniel Calobah got the ball rolling for the Italians before Lorenzo Insigne, Jose Callejon and Dries Mertens all got their names on the scoresheet, while they were denied a clean sheet thanks to Stojan Vranjes and Aleksandar Prijovic.
It took an arguably surprising 30 minutes for the Italians to take the lead but Chalobah did just that when he worked his way past a defender with good feet and then put the ball into the back of the net.
Lorenzo Insigne doubled his side’s lead with some yet more weak defending resulting in the Italian international simply being passed the ball by Tomasz Jodlowiec and he slotted it home.
The recent European goal-fest from the Partenopei looked set to continue right from the off in the second half from a corner but the referee disallowed a Vlad Chiriches header.
Jose Callejon came on as a substitute on 55 minutes and scored just two minutes later, when he pounced on a cross across the face of goal by Dries Mertens and tapped the ball into an empty net.
Napoli’s clean sheet vanished just after the hour mark through a similarly worked goal, with Aleksandar Prijovic the supplier and Stojan Vranjes the scorer to give the away team a glimmer of hope.
Mertens reassured the home faithful that Napoli weren’t going to crumble, though, when he scored an excellent, low goal from range which kissed the post as it worked its way in.
A fantastic run from Mertens led to two chances for the Italians which made them question how they hadn’t extended their led as a shot was first cleared off the line before hitting the post and going out.
The Belgian then made sure his team’s record of scoring five in all home games in the group stage continued with a stunner in stoppage time.
A seventh of the match was scored from Legia just seconds later and shocked the Italians deep in stoppage time thanks to Prijovic.
Napoli had already gained qualification to the next round of the Europa League, but the loss for Legia Warsaw means their run in this season’s tournament is over.
