Inter vs Napoli Prediction: Goals and redemption for Lautaro

The runaway leaders of Serie A get the night match on Sunday as Inter Milan welcome in a Napoli side still with hopes of returning to European competition next season. The game has a 19:45 (UK time) kick off scheduled and will be broadcast on TNT Sports 1.

Our Italian Football expert Daniele Fisichella has filed his preview with us at Betfred Insights, so read on to see what he thinks of this one as he picks out his two Best Bets as part of his Inter Milan vs Napoli predictions column...

The two sides knocked out of the Champions League in midweek meet at San Siro in a match that would be a virtual, handover of the Scudetto from the Neapolitans to the Neroazzurri.

If Napoli last season under Luciano Spalletti have been, for large spells, one of Europe’s best sides, Inter have managed to outshine the champions’ achievements, at least in Serie A.

The Neroazzurri have collected 25 points more than the previous campaign and with their current tally (75 points) they’d have already been crowned champions in 2022/2023 as Lazio, who finished behind Napoli, could not go past 74.

With a 16-points lead over their city rivals AC Milan and 17 on Juventus the conquest of their twentieth Italian title is just a matter of time for Simone Inzaghi’s men.

Following the elimination from Europe’s top competition, it is not unrealistic to think Inter could get very close to Antonio Conte’s Juventus record points (102 in 2013/2014) in Serie A.

But, in practical terms, they’d only need four victories from the last 10 games to get their hands on the Scudetto, also considering AC Milan and Juve will play each other the last weekend of April.

Of course the defeat in Madrid was a big disappointment for the Neroazzurri who paid a very high price for the numerous scoring chances they missed at both San Siro and the Civitas Metropolitano.

Inter did not play badly in the Spanish capital and controlled the ball for large spells, but lost focus soon after taking the lead and in the last then minutes conceded too many shooting opportunities to Diego Simeone’s side.

Also, Napoli left Spain with few regrets, in particular about their very soft start that allowed Barcelona to score twice in 120 seconds inside 17 minutes.

The Partenopei started playing better once they found themselves behind and, as it happened in the first leg, they had more than one opportunity to trouble Ter Stegen.

It has been a very tumultuous season for Napoli who under Franco Calzona are slowly rediscovering those virtues that seem to have vanished over the course of last summer.

The objective for the visitors is to try to reach the fifth place in the table and hope Italy will qualify an extra team to next season’s Champions League.

A very quick change of fortunes from last season for a team that seemed unbeatable and finished 18 points above Inter.

Team News:

Alexis Sanchez might be Lautaro Martinez’s partner up front with Marcus Thuram dropping to the bench. Frattesi should play in midfield in place of Mkhitaryan alongside Barella and Calhanoglu.

Dimarco and Dumfries will be confirmed as wing-backs, Acerbi will start in the back three. Arnautovic, Carlos Augusto, Sensi and Cuadrado are injured.

Everyone is available for Calzona including Ngonge who played a couple of minutes in Barcelona but will start from the bench. Politano and Kvaratskhelia will play either side of Osimhen up front.

Traorè might be confirmed in midfield with Anguissa and Lobotka; Zielinski and Cajuste will probably come on the second half. Olivera is ahead of Mario Rui to play as left back.

Inter Milan vs Napoli Odds:

The league leaders are huge favourite (8/13) to win on Sunday night, in fact, Inter have won their last 10 Serie A matches. They’ve achieved 11 victories only on two occasions: between October 2006 and February 2007 (when they went on to establish the current top flight’s record of 17 consecutive successes) and during the last Scudetto-winning season, from January to April 2021.

Inter have won seven of the last 11 games against Napoli (two draws, two wins for the visitors) and kept five clean sheets. This season, the Neroazzurri have already beaten Napoli twice: 3-0 at the Maradona and 1-0 in the Supercoppa Italiana final in Ryad.

The odds for the draw are 3/1 and the ones for a Napoli win 9/2. The visitors failed to score on the road against Bologna, Roma, Milan, Juventus and Lazio and have also been beaten twice by Real Madrid this year.

In fact, they’ve only managed to win two big matches (2-1 against both Atalanta and Juventus) during the current campaign.

Odds are short (4/6) for Over 2.5 Goals as five of Inter’s last six Serie A games produced at least three goals.

However five of Napoli’s last seven games have gone Under 2.5 Goals (odds 11/10).

Both Teams To Score @ 8/11

Under their third manager of the season, Napoli have only lost one out of six games and have become more efficient in front of goal.

In fact, they’ve found the net ten times in Serie A, scoring one more goals than what they did in 12 games under Walter Mazzarri.

When Napoli played Inter back in January, they defended with a back five and managed to stifle the leaders, who got the winner only in the last minute.

But that was a cup final and the champions were without Victor Osimhen. This time they’ll have to attack more and hope Inter won’t feel the urge to win, given their healthy advantage in the table.

Inter have kept nine home clean sheets in Serie A but both sides have scored in Napoli's last five Serie A matches.

Lautaro Martinez First Goalscorer @ 100/30

The Neroazzuri are used to starting domestic games on the front foot: they’ve scored before the break in all but one (their 1-0 win against Roma) Serie A home games this season, and led at half-time in 13 out of 14 league games at San Siro.

Inter’s Argentine captain, Lautaro Martinez, missed the decisive penalty against Atlético Madrid but his record against Napoli is very good: five goals (three of which at San Siro, and two in the last two meetings) in 14 games.

Lautaro has scored four times in the last six league games he played at San Siro and seven of his 26 goals this campaign have opened the scoring for Inter.

You can check out all of Daniele's Serie A Betting Tips here each week along with those of our other Italian Football writers...