The Super Eagles striker came off the bench to salvage a crucial point for the Partenopeans
Victor Osimhen scored a late equaliser for Napoli in their 1-1 draw against Cagliari in a Serie A fixture on Monday.
Osimhen met Mario Rui’s cross with a bullet header in the 87th minute, to cancel out Gaston Pereiro’s opening goal for the hosts.
The Nigeria international started on the bench for Luciano Spalletti’s side and he was introduced later in the second half as a 67th-minute substitute for Andrea Petagna.
Osimhen has now scored seven goals in 16 Serie A matches this season and it was his 11th goal across all competitions.
Meanwhile, Senegal centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly played the entire duration for Napoli and he was shown a yellow card in the 64th minute while Algeria’s Adam Ounas was thrown into the fray in the 67th minute as well.
The result left Napoli third in the Serie A table with 54 points after 26 matches – two points behind leaders AC Milan.
After securing back-to-back draws in their last threes games, Osimhen will hope to inspire the Partenopeans to winning ways when they host Barcelona at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona for the return fixture of their Uefa Europa League game on Thursday.
Both teams settled for a 1-1 draw at the Camp Nou last week. Meanwhile, Spalletti disclosed that Osimhen was close to missing Monday’s game.
“It was a complicated game for us, Cagliari deserved more. In fact, we deserved something less,” the Italian coach said, per Football Italia.
“We never took the game into our own hands, even though we had more possession. They wanted to play this game here and we wanted to play another.
“We have to be happy with the result because it happens to everyone after these Europa League games. We did too little in terms of quality.
“Don’t say it’s everyone any more, every time it happens in two days we lose 4-5 players. It was good of Osimhen to be available at the last second, he was at risk of not being in the game.”
from goal.com