Napoli saw off Bologna 1-0 in their Serie A clash on Sunday at the Stadio Diego Armando Mарадона. The hosts moved up the table after a hard-fought victory, while Bologna's struggles continued with another defeat. It was a match decided by a single moment in the second half, though the opening stages suggested otherwise.
And here's the thing — the game almost opened with a controversy. Arthur Theate thought he had given Bologna the lead in the eighth minute, but the goal was cancelled by VAR after a review. To be fair, it wasn't an obvious call, but the decision stood and the visitors had to regroup. By then, the momentum had shifted back to the home side.
The breakthrough finally came in the sixty-sixth minute when Stanislav Lobotka found the net. It wasn't a spectacular finish, but it was enough to decide the contest. Bologna tried to respond, bringing on Federico Bernardeschi and Nino Cambiaghi in the eighty-second minute, but they couldn't find a way through the Napoli defence.
We had tipped this one for the hosts at 54 per cent confidence, and fair play, we weren't wrong. Napoli haven't been at their best recently — losses to Arsenal and Inter, a draw with Sassuolo — but they know how to grind out results like this when it matters. The win keeps them moving, even if they sit in tenth place with just six points from four games.
The statistics tell a story of dominance without control. Napoli had 58 per cent possession and took thirty shots, but only three were on target. Bologna, meanwhile, managed just two shots on target from thirty attempts, with their expected goals figure sitting at a mere 0.29. It wasn't a performance that would win many fans over, but the result was all that counted.
Bologna's position in the table says it all — sixteenth place with just one point from four matches. They came into this game having drawn with Sassuolo, but three losses since then show a team finding things difficult. The clean-sheet streak ended here, and the visitors will have plenty of questions to answer before their next fixture.