Napoli 1-0 Bologna: Stanislav Lobotka ends Allegri's three-game losing run

Napoli needed this one. Three defeats in a row — to Como in the league, to Inter in a game they had led 2-0, and to Arsenal in the Champions League — had turned Massimiliano Allegri's opening weeks into a source of pressure rather than promise. Against Bologna, the run finally stopped, even if it took 66 minutes and a goal from a midfielder who does not usually get forward like this.

Costantino Favasuli pulled the ball back from the byline and Stanislav Lobotka arrived unmarked to drill it low past goalkeeper Marco Libra. It was enough. Napoli had already seen Bologna's Arthur Theate have a seventh-minute header ruled out for offside after a video review, and they controlled the rest of the game from there — 58% possession, 15 shots to Bologna's five, and an expected-goals reading of 1.81 to 0.25 that reflected how one-sided the second half in particular became.

Lobotka: a goal he does not usually get

"I don't know what I was doing up there, I don't usually do it, but I saw there was nobody around and Favasuli put in a lovely ball. I was also lucky, but that never hurts."

— Stanislav Lobotka, Napoli midfielder

Lobotka added afterwards that he has not scored many goals in his time at Napoli, and that he would take three points delivered this way every time. It was his side's first clean sheet of the month, and their first win since beating Genoa on the opening weekend.

A run that had turned into a crisis of confidence

Napoli's last four results before this one were W-L-L-L: a 2-0 win at Genoa, then a 1-2 home defeat to Como in which they let a game slip after 34 minutes, a 2-3 loss at Inter having led 2-0 with 53 minutes gone, and a 0-1 Champions League defeat to Arsenal at the Maradona in which Arsenal needed 26 shots to find the winner. Three losses in a row, each one different in its own way but each one leaving Napoli with less than they had earned at some point in the game, had put real scrutiny on Allegri only a month into the job.

Recent run

Where it leaves both clubs

Before this round, Guriball's table had Napoli 11th with three points from three matches and Bologna 15th with one point from three, both well adrift of the Champions League places that Roma and Inter currently occupy on nine points apiece. The win takes Napoli to six points; Bologna, who have now failed to score in three of their four league matches this season, stay on one. Bologna's difficulties are becoming a pattern rather than a bad week — a single point and two goals from four games leaves them closer to the relegation zone than to mid-table, and they will need results soon to avoid getting dragged into a fight they did not expect to be in this early.

Match facts

• 66' — Stanislav Lobotka (Napoli), assisted by Costantino Favasuli

What's next

Both clubs go into the international break with something to build on or fix. Napoli have a result to point to after a bruising run, and Allegri will hope the international window gives his squad — and Kevin De Bruyne in particular, who has been central to the good moments so far — time to reset. Bologna return with the same problem they have had all season: not enough goals, and not enough points to show for it.