Brescia aim to end a winless streak stretching back over two decades against Napoli when they welcome Gennaro Gattuso’s side to the Stadio Mario Rigamonti on Friday night.
PROBABLE LINE-UPS
Brescia (4-3-1-2): Alfonso; Sabelli, Mateju, Chancelor, Martella; Bisoli, Dessena, Bjarnason; Zmrhal; Donnarumma, Balotelli.
Unavailable: Torregrossa.
Suspended: Aye.
Napoli (4-3-3): Ospina; Di Lorenzo, Manolas, Maksimovic, Rui; Fabian, Demme, Elmas; Callejon, Mertens, Insigne.
Unavailable: Malcuit, Younes, Milik.
KEY STATISTICS
– Napoli are unbeaten in Serie A against Brescia since the beginning of 2000, thanks to two wins (one of which in the reverse fixture) and three draws.
– Napoli have scored in each of their last eight away games against Brescia in the top flight, picking up five wins, one draw and two defeats in the process.
– Napoli lost their last league game against a newly promoted team, 3-2 against Lecce in February: the last time the Partenopei lost consecutive such games was in April 2015 (against Palermo and Empoli) under Rafa Benítez.
– Brescia have won just two points in Serie A in 2020 (D2 L5), only Toulouse (one) have picked up fewer in the top five European leagues this year.
– Napoli have won three of the four Serie A away games under Gennaro Gattuso (L1), as many as in the previous 10 away games under Carlo Ancelotti (D4 L3).
– Brescia have gained just one of their 16 points in Serie A this season against teams currently in the top half of the table, a negative record in the top five European leagues in 2019/20.
– Three of Napoli’s last five Serie A goals have been scored by substitutes, as many as in their previous 60 goals in the competition.
– In the reverse fixture against Napoli, Mario Balotelli scored his first Serie A goal for Brescia; this season he has scored five goals, but only one at the Rigamonti – his most recent strike, against Lazio.
– With the goal against Cagliari, Dries Mertens has now scored 120 goals with Napoli in all competitions, just one goal shy of the record set by Marek Hamsik (121) – the Belgian can reach this record in 213 games fewer than the Slovakian (currently 306 v 520).
