MILAN
\nNapoli recommence their bid for a first Italian title in over three decades when they face rivals Inter Milan on Wednesday as Serie A gets back underway with one of the league\u2019s most hotly-anticipated fixtures.
\nLuciano Spalletti\u2019s side have already won once this season at the San Siro, claiming the points in a tight contest with reigning champions AC Milan, over whom they defend an eight-point lead at the top of the division. Napoli are hoping to extend an 11-match winning streak and maintain their unbeaten record in Italy\u2019s top flight after having dropped just four points in their 15 matches.
\nThey also have the league\u2019s best attack after scoring 37 times before the World Cup, nine of those coming from Victor Osimhen who tops the scoring charts and is one of a host of well-rested players who didn\u2019t travel to Qatar.
\nAnother of those is wing wizard Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian heir to icon Diego Maradona, ready to start after not featuring since Napoli\u2019s Champions League defeat at Liverpool at the start of November which is their only defeat of the season so far.
\nChampions in 2021 and challengers until the final day of last season, fifth-placed Inter will provide a stern test of Napoli\u2019s Scudetto credentials after Milan open 2023\u2019s fixtures at Salernitana.
\nSimone Inzaghi\u2019s side are 11 points off the pace in fifth but have won six of their last seven and will have star striker Romelu Lukaku back after injury troubles and humiliation at the World Cup.
\nOn Monday Inter revealed midfield lynchpin Marcelo Brozovic would be out with a calf injury.
\n\u201cUntil the moment in which a team lifts the trophy anything is possible. That\u2019s why we play football, you have to believe in the impossible,\u201d said Lukaku in an interview with Sky at the weekend.
\nReady to take advantage of a Napoli slip-up are Juventus, who are at struggling Cremonese and embroiled in one of Italian football\u2019s biggest scandals in years.
\nJuve are set to name an entire new board later this month after the previous one collectively stepped down as prosecutors in Turin accuse the club of a variety of financial crimes.
\nThose include lying to the stock market when announcing at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic that players would help the club save 90 million euros by giving up four month\u2019s pay, instead allegedly making a private agreement for the team to forgo just one payment.
\nHowever they are sitting third after recovering from a dismal start to the season with six straight league wins leading up to the World Cup break.
\nJuve will be missing Dusan Vlahovic as coach Massimiliano Allegri deals with a series of injuries which still includes Paul Pogba, who missed the World Cup for finalists France and is yet to play a single game for the club since returning last summer.
\nMade into a figure of fun after his display of poor finishing in Belgium\u2019s World Cup group-stage elimination, Lukaku is now fit and ready to rebuild his reputation as one of Europe\u2019s most feared strikers.
\nThe 29-year-old missed a hatful of chances in a goalless draw with Croatia which ended the Red Devils\u2019 chances in Qatar but hadn\u2019t even played a half of football since August before coming on as a second-half substitute.
\n\u201cCroatia was a huge disappointment but I told myself: \u2018Romelu, you weren\u2019t 100 percent, you\u2019d only had two training sessions,\u201d said Lukaku.
\n\u201cI was rightly massacred but now I really want to get back out on the pitch.\u201d
\n11 – Napoli\u2019s league winning streak before the World Cup
\n2 – Lukaku has featured just twice for Inter since August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MILAN Napoli recommence their bid for a first Italian title in over three decades when they face rivals Inter Milan on Wednesday as Serie A gets back underway with one of the league\u2019s most hotly-anticipated fixtures. Luciano Spalletti\u2019s side have already won once this season at the San Siro, claiming the points in a tight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-305589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n