Spartak Moscow vs Napoli Predictions & Tips

Spartak Moscow are winless in 7 games in all competitions, but have scored in all of those matches.
Since their 3-2 win in Naples, Spartak have been beaten 7-1 by Zenit and 4-3 by Leicester, conceding 18 goals in 7 games.
Napoli are the second-highest scorers in the Europa League group stage, and have already scored 37 goals in league and European outings this term.

Free-Scoring Napoli out to Secure Qualification

Group C remains the Europa League’s most fiercely competitive group heading into the final two matchdays. All four teams are separated by 3 points, and while Napoli would secure qualification with a win, a victory for the hosts would fire them from bottom to top.

Luicano Spalletti’s Napoli have been scintillating this season, but suffered their first Serie A defeat on Sunday at the hands of title rivals Inter. Even more significantly, Sunday saw Napoli lose star striker Victor Osimhen to a nasty-looking facial injury, which will require surgery and potentially rule him out for the rest of 2021. Osimhen has netted 9 goals for Napoli this season, 4 of which have come in the Europa League.

Napoli made a slow start to their European campaign, drawing with Leicester and losing at home to Spartak, before their back-to-back thrashings of Legia Warsaw. With Spaletti’s charges having scored a total of 37 goals in 17 Serie A and Europa League matches, they’ll remain confident of racking up the goals, even in Osimhen’s absence.

Spartak Struggling Since Victory in Naples

After their fantastic 3-2 win in Naples, Spartak Moscow embarked on their current dismal run of 7 games without victory. Rui Vitoria’s team have scored in all of those games, but have been awful at the back throughout a sequence which has included a 7-1 hammering by Zenit, and a 4-3 loss to Leicester.

Spartak are 10^th in the Russian Premier League at the season’s half-way point, and Vitoria may be lucky to hold onto his job for much longer as the winter break approaches.

With all of that in mind, and with Napoli desperate not only to secure qualification, but to secure a bye for the Round of 32 by finishing top, I’m backing the visitors to bounce back from their first league defeat with a hard-fought win in Russia, although one should also expect Spartak to get on the scoreboard. A narrow 2-1 win for the visitors looks a decent correct score prediction.