Napoli lost the lead at the top of Serie A on Saturday following a 1-0 defeat at Juventus and now they face a Villarreal team on a strong run of form.
Napoli will definitely be looking to bounce back the loss to Serie A rivals Juventus, with an away goal or two being their most important objective. They will come up against the team in a terrific form of late, however, as Marcelino’s men beat in-form Malaga 1-0 at the Madrigal last weekend to move eight points clear of fifth place Sevilla in fourth La Liga – and they have won nine of their last 15 matches in all competitions, losing only two (both against Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey).
Futhermore, Villarreal have won 11 of their last 15 home games and they are unbeaten in five European fixtures (W4 D1), as they must yet concede at Madrigal in the Europa League this season.
Napoli will thus come up against the strong challenge, and with their minds certainly still occupied with the defeat against Juventus, they must be very careful to avoid going out of this tie too early. However, if anybody is capable of scoring goals in this competition, it must be the Partenopei – Maurizio Sarri’s team became only the sixth club in the history of the Europa League to make it through the group stage with maximum points, and were the group stage’s top scorers with 22 goals – an average of 3.67 per game – conceding only three.
Head to Head:
This will be a fifth meeting between the sides, as they have met four times before, and all of those meetings came in 2011. In the Round of 32 of the Europa League in 2010/11 Villarreal proved to be better as they won 2-1 at Madrigal after playing a goalless draw in Italy, and the season later in the Champions League Group stage Napoli won both games with 2-0.
Match facts:
- There have been over 2.5 goals scored in 21 of Villarreal’s last 25 games in Europa League.
- Napoli have sailed through their group, winning all their matches (6).
- Napoli have also scored at least 2 goals in 5 of their last 6 matches in the competition.
Team news:
Mariano Barbosa has been trusted between the sticks in the Europa League this season and should return to the starting XI for the reception of Napoli on Thursday. Eric Bailly is injured for the home side, as are Adrian and Samuel.
Napoli have fewer injury worries, as Maurizio Sarri has almost an entire squad to pick from apart from Alberto Grassi, who is out injured. The Napoli boss is likely to make changes for this fixtures with one eye on their league clash with AC Milan at the weekend – the likes of Gonzalo Higuain, Marek Hamsik and Lorenzo Insigne among those that could be rested.
From : SS.com
