Napoli got the better of Crotone in a seven-goal thriller at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, winning 4-3 on Saturday afternoon.
Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne, Victor Osimhen, and Giovanni Di Lorenzo were all on target for the Partenopei, while a Simy brace and a Junior Messias strike kept Serie A’s bottom-placed side in it.
Fifteen rather chaotic first-half minutes saw as many as four goals packed in before the break, starting with Lorenzo Insigne’s 19th-minute opener.
Victor Osimhen doubled the Partenopei’s advantage not long after as he tapped in after a sublime Insigne scissor kick teed him up, but Simy Nwankwo reduced that deficit back to one almost immediately. Gennaro Gattuso’s half-time team talk was made somewhat easier after Mertens gave the hosts breathing room by adding his side’s third just after the half-hour mark.
But Gli Squali weren’t to be beaten easily, and Simy netted again within three minutes of the second half getting underway to give the Calabrese hope.
Crotone’s main threats all season have been Simy and Junior Messias, so it didn’t come as a great surprise to see the latter level things up just shy of the hour mark.
Napoli kept going though, and they got their reward when Giovanni Di Lorenzo grabbed their fourth of the game’s seven goals with just under 20 minutes to play.
That was where the scoring stopped, surprisingly, allowing Napoli to keep pace with Atalanta as La Dea beat Udinese in Bergamo.