Napoli vs Shakhtar Donetsk Predictions, 21 Nov 2017

The Match Is Over. Score: 3-0

Napoli v Shakhtar Donetsk Predictions for Tuesday's 7.45pm kick-off Champions League group fixture facing Serie A hosts Napoli and Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk at Stadio San Paolo. Shakhtar travel to Italy to face a Napoli side desperate for a win. The Ukrainians will know that if they manage to avoid a loss, they qualify for the next stage of the Champions League (CL).

Match status: 2017-18 Champions League Group Stages
Kick-off: Tuesday 21 Nov 2017, 07:45pm GMT
Venue: "Stadio San Paolo" in Naples, Italy

Napoli v Shakhtar Donetsk Team News

Napoli, on the other hand, must win. Furthermore, given the rules of the tournament, they need to win by a “better score” than 2-1, the result from Shakhtar's win in the reverse fixture (better meaning by a bigger margin, or by scoring more goals; 1-0 will not cut it). If they manage this, they still need help from Manchester City, who have to beat Shakhtar in the last round of the group stage for the Italians to progress.

Domestically, Gli Azzuri have been close to faultless: 13 games have yielded 11 wins and 2 draws and they are scoring 2.61 goals on average. At home, those numbers are 4 wins and 1 draw, and 2.83 goals per match.

Dries Mertens have been absolutely stellar so far, scoring 10 and making 3 assists in those games. In the CL group stage, the fast paced Belgian has found it more difficult, having so far accrued more yellow cards (2) than goals (1).

Shakhtar are involved in a duel with Dynamo Kiev in their home league, but currently sit top of the table. Interestingly, of their 36 points they have taken 20 when playing away (8 games) against 16 at home (8 games), suggesting that they take some amount of confidence into this game.

Napoli matches so far in the group stage average 4.5 yellow cards, that number is 3.25 for Shakhtar. Apart from Shakhtar's 0-2 defeat against Manchester City in September, all the matches in Group F have ended with over 2.5 goals.

Teams' Possible Starting Lineups:

Napoli: Reina - Rui, Maksimovic, Albiol, Hysaj - Hamsik, Jorginho, Diawara - Insigne, Mertens, Callejon (4-3-3 formation)

Shakhtar Donetsk: Pyatov - Ismaily, Rakitskiy, Ordets, Butko - Stepanenko, Fred - Bernard, Taison, Marlos - Ferreyra (4-2-3-1 formation)