Napoli continued their struggles on home turf with Sunday’s shock 1-0 defeat to Empoli which left the Serie A champions already well off the pace in this season’s title race.

Rudi Garcia’s team haven’t won in Naples since the end of September and were loudly booed off by fans at the Stadio Maradona after Viktor Kovalenko’s superb last-minute strike snatched the points for Empoli.

Napoli stay fourth, eight points behind provisional league leaders Juventus and are looking over their shoulders at pretenders to the Champions League positions.

They will be 10 points from the summit after just 12 matches if in-form Inter beat Frosinone at the San Siro in Sunday’s late match.

It has been a troubling opening few months to the current campaign in which the enthusiasm of last season’s thrilling first Scudetto in over three decades has dissipated.

Read full story on sport.timesofmalta.com

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