Serie A Wrap: Juventus, Napoli hit four in comfortable wins

Juventus and Napoli each hit four to continue their fine starts to the Serie A season on Saturday.

The Turin outfit continued their Serie A title defence with a 4-1 home win over Lazio.

Antonio Conte’s men got off to a solid start as they set out to attack from kick-off and opened the scoring 14 minutes in. Paul Pogba spotted the advancing run of Arturo Vidal and picked him out with an exquisite lofted pass into the area allowing the Chilean to bring it down and poke into the goal.

Vidal’s bursts from midfield were proving unstoppable and he doubled his tally just before the half-hour mark as he broke the offside trap, controlled Leonardo Bonucci’s long pass and stroked the ball under a helpless Federico Marchetti.

Lazio replied less than a minute later as Gianluigi Buffon could not hold on to Hernanes’ powerful shot and Miroslav Klose slid in to bury the rebound, but Mirko Vucinic eventually re-established the two-goal advantage four minutes after the break as he latched on to another long pass from Bonucci and slotted home.

A red card for Hernanes soon followed as he attempted to knock a cross towards goal with his hand and was shown a second yellow card, before Carlos Tevez wrapped up the win for Juventus with a placed shot.

Napoli remain top in the embryonic Serie A table, after they thrashed Chievo 4-2 away from home.

Rafael Benitez’s side took the lead in the 13th minute as Lorenzo Insigne cut in from the left and laid the ball off for Marek Hamsik who found the net from the edge of the area. Their lead did not last long, however.

Eleven minutes later Perparim Hetemaj brought down a lofted ball on the right flank before volleying a low cross into the area and Alberto Paloschi diverted the ball past Pepe Reina.

Chievo had not been level for five minutes when Gonzalo Higuain surged into the left-hand side of the hosts’ penalty area and squared for his former Real Madrid teammate Jose Callejon to tap into an empty net, but Paloschi hit back again before half-time.

After the break, however, Chievo would not prove to be so resilient as two goals in the space of six minutes settled the match.

Hamsik grabbed his second of the game in the 64th minute, a goal which saw him become the first player to score twice in each of the first two Serie A matches of the season since Alessandro Del Piero managed it in 2002-03, while Higuain rounded off the win soon after.