Napoli move joint top after seeing off Chievo

Napoli moved joint top of Serie A after goals from Gonzalo Higuaín, Vlad Chiriches and José Callejón saw them come back from a shock early deficit to beat Chievo 3-1 on Saturday night.

Maurizio Sarri's side are level on 61 points with reigning champions Juventus after a hugely entertaining encounter with Chievo, who stay 11th on 34 points despite a spirited display that saw Nicola Rigoni silence a rowdy San Paolo stadium by robbing a dozing Chiriches and drilling past Napoli goalkeeper Pepe Reina with the game less than two minutes old.

Higuaín calmed the home fans' nerves four minutes later by nipping in front of Bostjan Cesar to meet Faouzi Ghoulam's low pass and score his 26th goal in 28 league games, and Chiriches redeemed himself seven minutes before the break when he met Jorginho's whipped cross with a close-range header.

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Napoli were in fine form and created a hatful of chances, but only sealed the three points with 20 minutes to go through Callejón, who beat Chievo's offside trap to tuck home Allan's drilled cross to make sure of the home side's first win in nearly a month.

In Saturday's early game Sampdoria eased their relegation fears by hammering Hellas Verona 3-0 with goals from Roberto Soriano, Antonio Cassano and Lazaros Christodoulopoulos in the first half an hour. The comfortable win sees Samp up to 13th on 31 points and leaves Verona rock bottom of Serie A, nine points from safety.