Napoli’s Scott McTominay scored after 25 seconds and Romelu Lukaku and David Neres were also on target as they beat visitors Como 3-1 on Friday to extend their lead at the summit of Serie A.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli top the table with 16 points after seven matches, four ahead of Juventus, who host Cagliari on Sunday.
McTominay opened the scoring when he fired the ball into the net off a post from inside the box after being teed up by a pass from Lukaku.
Como created multiple opportunities, with Nico Paz firing a powerful long-distance shot that struck the inside of a post before deflecting away to safety. They equalised through Gabriel Strefezza’s low, long-range strike that sailed through a crowded box into the bottom left corner two minutes before the break.
Lukaku restored the hosts’ lead from the penalty spot eight minutes into the second half after Sergi Roberto brought down Mathias Olivera. Neres scored Napoli’s third in the 86th minute when he latched on to a through ball from Lukaku and converted a one-on-one chance to dash the visitors’ hopes of earning a draw.
Lukaku, who has battled to regain match fitness after joining the club in late August, delivered an impressive performance with one goal and two assists.
“I arrived late, but I’m already integrated, all thanks to my teammates, the technical staff and the fans. We have to continue like this, we’ve won again,” Lukaku, who will miss Belgium’s upcoming Nations League matches to continue working at Napoli, told Sky Sport Italia. “Now we all go to the national team and then those of us who remain here will continue to work and prepare for the next games.”
Lukaku, who has three goals and four assists in five matches for Napoli, admitted the game was far from perfect. “We also had moments in which, on the counterattack, we could have done better, but we have to review these situations to improve in the future,” he said.
A late own goal by Jesse Joronen gave Verona a 2-1 victory over Venezia. Gaetano Oristanio put Venezia 1-0 up in the second minute when he took advantage of poor defending to head home a corner kick.
The home side replied seven minutes later when Casper Tengstedt finished off a nice move with a smart volley. Verona got the winner nine minutes from time when Grigoris Kastanos’ header was touched into his own net by goalkeeper Joronen.
Newly-promoted Leganés drew 0-0 at home to Valencia to extend the club’s winless La Liga streak to seven matches.
Between them the two sides have scored only 10 goals this season and there was little in the way of goalmouth action in a poor game. There were no shots on target in an insipid first half and although Leganés pushed forward in the second period, the closest ithey came to scoring was when Oscar’s shot ricocheted off the post.
Marseille missed a chance to join Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain at the top of Ligue 1 after being held to a 1-1 draw by bottom club Angers 1-1 in a match marred by first-half red cards for both teams.
The home side was handed an early advantage when Angers’ Lilian Rao-Lisoa was sent off for a foul in the 26th minute but Marseille’s on loan striker from Everton, Neal Maupay, was shown two harsh yellow cards in three minutes to depart four minutes later.
Marseille took the lead six minutes into the second half through substitute Jonathan Rowe. Farid El Melali got his first goal of the season for Angers to level the scores with a beautiful free kick after 54 minutes.
