Recent encounters
After last Monday's 1-1 draw with Bologna, Napoli will be in action on Monday night once again seven days later – this time at the Stadio Maradona, with Empoli as the opponents.
The last 20 meetings between these two sides have yielded eight wins apiece and four draws.
The teams coached by Antonio Conte and Roberto D’Aversa may go into the match at opposite ends of the table – in 2nd and 18th place, respectively – but Empoli have triumphed on the two most recent occasions when they faced Napoli having started the weekend in the relegation zone: 2-1 at home on 3 April 2019 and 1-0 away on 12 November 2023.
Empoli: improvement in defence needed
The difference between these two teams this season can be summed up by the number of goals scored and conceded: 48 and 24 for Napoli, 25 and 47 for Empoli, who they have the league's sixth worst defence
The Tuscan outfit tend to struggle more in the second half: they have let in 31 goals after the break (the same number as Parma) – only Como have conceded more (32).
Five of their 24 goals scored (21%) have come from headers, but they will be up against the only team in the top five European leagues yet to concede a single headed goal – or any from corners – so far this season.
Empoli tend to rely on long balls (1727, fewer only than Bologna's 1767) when under pressure, which could prove problematic against a careful, well-drilled side such as Napoli.
D’Aversa's men will no doubt have their work cut. If they are to win the game, they will need to work hard and create density in the middler of the park before exploiting the wide areas, where they have players with the pace to trouble opponents.
D’Aversa’s Italian assets: Colombo, Esposito and Cacace
One of Roberto D’Aversa’s trump cards could be his Italian players, as Empoli boast the highest number of goals (percentage-wise) by Italian footballers in Serie A: 18 of the club’s 24 goals have been scored by Italians.
A total of five Italian footballers have scored for the Tuscan side in this Serie A season, the most proficient ones being Lorenzo Colombo and Sebastiano Esposito.
Colombo, who scored the very first of his 14 Serie A goals against Napoli (on 31 August 2022 with Lecce), has scored five goals so far this season – a figure he is yet to better.
What’s more, 79% of his goals in Serie A have come in away matches (11/14, including the one against Napoli) – an all-time Serie A record in percentage terms among players with at least as many goals as him.
Another one of Empoli’s high-performing players in away matches is Sebastiano Esposito: seven of the eight goals he’s scored this Serie A season have been in away matches. The 22-year- old on loan from Inter is not only an asset in the attacking phase; he also has a lot to offer when the team is defending, ranking among the top five strikers when it comes to ball recovery in 2024/25 Serie A: 92, behind his team-mate Emmanuel Gyasi (121), Gabriel Strefezza (97) and Kenan Yidiz (94), and tied with Alieu Fadera, also on 92.
Liberato Cacace meanwhile is one of just two Empoli players to have scored more than one goal and provided more than one assist this Serie A season (2+2; Lorenzo Colombo has 5+2), although all four of those goal contributions were between November and January.
Stats by Opta
