Napoli continued their march towards a first Serie A title in over three decades with Sunday’s 3-0 win over rock-bottom Cremonese which provisionally moved the runaway league leaders 16 points clear.
A 33-year wait for the league crown looks closer to ending with each passing week and once again Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Victor Osimhen were the key men for Luciano Spalletti’s flamboyant team at the Stadio Maradona.
Winger wizard Kvaratskhelia set Napoli on their way with a delightful individual effort in the 22nd minute on his 22nd birthday before Osimhen’s league-leading 17th goal of the season midway through the second half and an Eljif Elmas strike 11 minutes from the end.
Thanks to a sixth straight league win Napoli will be at least 13 points ahead of Inter Milan come Tuesday morning, their closest rivals travelling to crisis club Sampdoria for the final match of this round of fixtures on Monday night.
“The city is making sure that we’re always on the case, we all want to win,” Spalletti told DAZN.
“We need to take it one match at a time… we can’t think it’s already done and start thinking about other things, or think everything’s going to look after itself.
“We need to take care of everything ourselves.”
Cremonese meanwhile are still yet to win in their first Serie A season since 1996 and look certain to go straight back down despite another committed performance under recently-appointed coach Davide Ballardini.
The away side, who knocked Napoli out of the Italian Cup on the same ground last month, started well but as soon as Kvaratskhelia weaved into the box and drilled home his ninth league goal of his debut Serie A campaign the game was up.
Osimhen was not in his usual fiery form but in the 65th minute the Nigeria striker was in the right place to tap in from practically on the goal line when following a corner Kim Min-Jae nodded the ball over to him.
And substitute Elmas ensured that Napoli’s tally of dropped points stayed at an incredible seven, exchanging passes with Giovanni Di Lorenzo before lashing in his sixth goal of the season past Marco Carnesecchi.
