This game had the potential to be an extremely end-to-end encounter, with both teams prefering to play an attacking style and use a lot of energy.
Liverpool started the game in uncharacteriscally lax style, giving the ball away easily on a number of occasions.
Naby Keita was one of the main architects of unforced errors, and it was revealed why when he went down just 19 minutes in to the game holding his back, and had to be taken off the pitch on a stretcher which prompted the introduction of Jordan Henderson.
The club captain settled the game down a lot, but that didn't prevent Lorenzo Insigne having a great chance to give Napoli the lead with a shot from the left side of the box, but it went just past the post.
The home side defended well in the first period, but apart from positive contributions from Joe Gomez and Andy Robertson, the away side will not have been at all happy with how they played.
The second half saw Liverpool continue their poor ball retension, and Napoli were more urgent in attack as they had more and more opportunities to take the lead as the half went on.
October 3, 2018
In attack for the away team, Salah had a terrible game and never looked like scoring, with poor touches and tame shots summing up the poor form that he is currently going through. Saying that, the other two members of the front trio were barely more dangerous with Ospina having to make virtually no saves.
Unlike his opposite number, Alisson was forced to make two excellent saves from Jose Callejon and Dries Mertens, whose effort subsequently rattled off the cross bar as a Napoli goal looked ever more likely.
That chance finally came in the last minute of normal time, when Jose Callejon found himself on the right wing and drilled in a cross across the face of goal.
Lorenzo Insigne managed to get infront of his man, and the Napoli captain tapped the ball in to the net to give his side a win that was nothing less than they deserved.
Carlo Ancelotti will be thrilled with his team, as they remained defensively solid through an excellent showing from Kalidou Koulibaly and Raul Albiol in paritcular, as well as creating some excellent attacking chances in the second half.
Jurgen Klopp, on the other hand, will be less than impressed with the performance his team put in. While the defensive trio of Joe Gomez, Virgil Van Dijk and Andy Robertson were all excellent, as well as Alisson, the rest of the team looked to be extremely out of sorts and barely threatened the Napoli goal.
The weekend's game against Man City now looks an ever tougher prospect for the 'Reds'.
October 3, 2018