Victor Osimhen made his long-awaited return for Napoli last night in the first leg of their last 16 game against Barcelona.
The Nigerian striker has gone through a rather stop-start season so far with injuries and suspensions stopping him from playing for a continued period of time.
Alongside Napoli putting up an extremely poor title defence this season – currently sitting in ninth place in Serie A – Osimhen has been unable to build up to the form that saw him score 26 league goals last campaign.
We take a look at how he performed in his first Napoli outing for nearly two months.
Back from injury
Osimhen also missed a large period through his involvement with Nigeria in the Africa Cup of Nations where the Super Eagles made it to the final before falling to defeat against hosts Ivory Coast. While the tournament kicked off on 13 January, Osimhen had already been unavailable for Napoli since the 23 December due to receiving a red card against Roma. All of these factors came to an end this week with Osimhen finally making an appearance once again for his club.
Osimhen started up front against Barcelona with hopes high that he could help push Napoli towards a needed victory with the Champions League looking like their last hopes
Poor first half
The first half was an extremely disappointing performance from everyone involved in the Napoli XI. While the possession was shared exactly equally, the Italian side were unable to create any chances in the first 45 minutes while Barcelona took seven shots. However, the game went into half-time still at 0-0 and Napoli improved in the second half.
Back on the scoresheet
Napoli started getting into more dangerous areas and Osimhen appeared to be played through on goal on multiple occasions, but the offside flag was stopping the striker from making the most of these chances. Despite going 1-0 down to a Robert Lewandowski goal Napoli continued pushing forward and finally, Osimhen was given the opportunity he was wishing for.
Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa received the ball just outside the area and played the ball towards Osimhen inside the box. The forward was tightly marked by Inigo Martinez but Osimhen used his body excellently as he shielded Martinez from the ball and rolled past the centre-back before placing his shot across the keeper and into the back of the net.
This ended up being Osimhen’s only shot of the game and also his final touch of the ball as he was immediately subbed off for Giovanni Simeone.
What do the stats say?
Outside of his goal, the attacker had a very quiet game taking the least touches of any player to have started for either of the two sides including both goalkeepers with just 25. The striker won only four of his 12 overall duels and successfully found his target with just 56% of his nine passes.
Despite not being the best of games, the striker will be happy to be back on the scoresheet after a barren run in front of goal for both club and country in recent times. And while the overall performance does leave much to be desired, more game time will likely see his levels improve as he builds his match sharpness.
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