Player ratings: Man City 2-0 Napoli – Di Lorenzo decision dictates final result

Napoli fell to a 2-0 defeat away against Manchester City at the beginning of the Champions League campaign, in a game that was effectively decided by Giovanni Di Lorenzo’s red card after just 20 minutes of action in England. 

Here are the ratings after a disappointing evening in the North West for Conte and his players.

You can see how the action unfolded on the Football Italia Liveblog.

Man City 1-0 Napoli: Player ratings 

Napoli ratings 

Milinkovic-Savic 6.5 – Arguably Napoli’s player of the match after Di Lorenzo’s red card. He and the Partenopei back line were only able to keep their clean sheet intact for 10 minutes of the second half, though.

Di Lorenzo 4 – Sent off for his first decisive challenge of the game. The correct call. It was always going to be a long night after that. 

Beukema 4 – Almost found the back of the net again with a decent header from a corner after a quarter of an hour. It was, however, his poorly placed defensive header almost immediately afterwards that led to Di Lorenzo’s red card. Doku also had the better of him for Man City’s second.

Buongiorno 5 – Stepped out to try and stop Foden before his delicate assist for Haaland. The Norwegian just needs the slightest of gaps to take advantage, and Buongiorno gave him that on that one occasion.

Spinazzola 5 – Swapped from left to right-back after the sending off, and it was all hands on deck for defensive duties for the most part. Unable to stop Doku when he got between the full-back and Beukema for City’s second.

Lobotka 6 – Not a lot of time on the ball for Napoli’s conductor, who only attempted 20 passes over the course of 70 minutes. Still had a 90% pass accuracy. Not a game that showed his best qualities, though.

Politano 5.5 – Helped Di Lorenzo to double up on Doku in defensive phases, put in a big block to deny Reijnders just before half-time, which he celebrated like he’d scored himself.. Booked early into the second half and was brought off by Conte, hoping to avoid going down to nine men.

Anguissa 5 – Not the most impactful performance from the Cameroonian, whose passing statistics weren’t the best (63% completion rate), and also failed to make any tackles or interceptions despite playing off the ball for the vast majority of the game.

De Bruyne 6 – Too little time on the pitch to make any real contribution, but showed his experience and leadership qualities with his response to being taken off after 25 minutes: No complaints, No funny looks towards the dugout, made his way off immediately, and was serenaded by the home crowd in the process. 

McTominay 6 – A quiet night for the reigning Serie A MVP, whose only real activity on the ball came in the first and last 20 minutes, when Napoli still had 11 players on the pitch, and after Man City had gone 2-0 up.

Hojlund – Tried to make a nuisance of himself in the early stages, but was never going to be blessed with opportunities after the early red card.

Coach: Antonio Conte 6 – The truth is, it’s difficult to judge Conte’s approach to this game, given that his Plan A held up for less than 20 minutes. What else was he supposed to do other than attempt to keep Haaland quiet with 10 men away against Manchester City? 

Man City ratings

Donnarumma 6; Khusanov 6, Dias 6, Gvardiol 6, O’Reilly 6.5; Rodri 6.5; Bernardo 6, Reijnders 6, Foden 7, Doku 7; Haaland 7.5.