clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Napoli 3, Cagliari 3: Player ratings and Man of the Match poll

A disappointing draw held several disappointing performances for Napoli players. Who, though, was the best of the day?

Maurizio Lagana/Getty Images

This was not a fun day to be a Napoli fan. After a bright start, a comedy of errors allowed Cagliari to score three goals, and instead of an emphatic win, Napoli suffered their way to a draw. There were a handful of good individual performances, but there were just as many poor ones

Starters

Rafael Cabral - 6 - Rafael probably could have done better on two of the goals, but he did make a couple nice saves and played well in other phases of his game.

Christian Maggio - 6 - This was a really mixed bag for Maggio today. Probably had his best game of the season so far going forward to support the attack, but he was all kinds of shaky in defense. Farias dragged him around on a leash and made him look really bad at times.

Henrique Buss - 3 - Wow. Just wow. Henrique was awful today. Sloppy turnovers all over the place, couldn't contain Cossou at all, and was involved in giving up all three goals. The only way his day could have been worse would have been to net an own goal.

Kalidou Koulibaly - 5 - Rough day for a normally stellar defender. His mistake lead to the third Cagliari goal, and even before that he'd been very shaky. Several sloppy fouls, less assured in possession than normal.... just not a good day at the office for Koulibaly.

Faouzi Ghoulam - 7 - Solid, solid display from Ghoulam. Held down his flank well defensively and was one of the more valuable members of the attack as well. Losing him for AFCON is going to hurt.

Walter Gargano - 5 - Oh look, there's old Gargano again: terrifyingly sloppy in possession, too often lost in defense. Bring back the mask. He was much better with the mask.

Gokhan Inler - 7 - There's the old Gokhan we know and love! Inler was active at both ends of the pitch, wasn't bombing tons of wasteful shots, and even scored a goal with one of the few that he took. This performance was a ray of sunshine in what's been a disappointing season for the Swiss midfielder.

Jonathan De Guzman - 7 - There were definite growing pains in getting De Guzman involved in the attack in a new role, but in the end he did a solid job, scoring one goal himself and almost bagging another.

Marek Hamsik - 6 - Napoli's captain quietly had a solid day, conducting several of Napoli's best attacking threats and generally causing a lot of problems for Cagliari's defense. He didn't get a goal or an assist, though, so the "why does Marek suck now Rafa broke him" narrative will continue on unabated.

Jose Callejon - 5 -This was not Good Ziggy that we saw today. Callejon's positioning and runs lacked their normal sharpness, and his involvement in buildup was.... lacking. Hopefully he's better next time out.

Gonzalo Higuain - 7 - Scored a goal (yay!) but was offside a lot the rest of the match (boo). We also saw shades of Frustrated Higuain later on, and that's never a good thing to see.

Substitutes

David Lopez - 6 - Came on to solidify the defense after Napoli bagged their third goal, but didn't have a chance to do anything about Cagliari's equalizer. Was excellent afterwards, though, including a thundered shot that went just wide.

Miguel Britos - n/a - Didn't really have an impact on the match one way or the other after coming on. Things were pretty well decided by the time he stepped on the pitch.