Napoli vs. Sassuolo confirmed lineups, match discussion, and Serie A hangovers

It’s been a long weekend, between the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. and a chaortic weekend of football in Europe, with Serie A proving to be no exception. Now Napoli are hosting Sassuolo hoping to avoid becoming the next victim of that chaos — and hoping to instead use it to their advantage.

Thanks to a shocking defeat for Juventus, Napoli can, with a win, pull to six points behind the league leaders and re-establish themselves in a better position in the overall race. They stand in seventh place coming into the weekend, and while Napoli would only rise back to sixth with a win, they’d also be just two points behind second-place Roma, which is not a bad spot to be in with the winter break fast approaching.

To get to that place, though, Napoli need to win first, so perhaps it’s a good thing that they’re facing 16th-placed Sassuolo in this match. Maurizio Sarri has rotated his side relatively heavily for the match, though, taking tired legs like Dries Mertens, Faouzi Ghoulam, and Amadou Diawara out of the lineup and relying on Manolo Gabbiadini to get the job done up front. Hopefully that doesn’t backfire, because anything other than a win is unacceptable in this match.

Lineups

Napoli: Reina; Hysaj, Chiriches, Koulibaly, Strinic; Allan, Jorginho, Hamsik; Callejon, Gabbiadini, Insigne

Sassuolo: Consigli; Gazzola, Cannavaro, Acerbi, Peluso; Mazzitelli, Magnanelli, Missiroli; Politano, Matri, Ragusa

Watch It

When: Monday, 7 p.m. CET, 1 p.m. ET

Where: Stadio San Paolo, Naples, Italy

TV: beIN Sports (U.S.), Sky Calcio 2, PremiumSport 2 HD (Italy), BT Sport 1 (U.K.), RAI International

Online: beIN Sports Connect (U.S.), Sky Go Italia (Italy), BT Sport Live Streaming (U.K.)