Serie A | Napoli 0-0 Parma: McTominay frustrated by tight offside

Napoli were held to their third consecutive Serie A stalemate, as the tightest possible offside call denied another Scott McTominay goal against Parma.

The Partenopei were without coach Antonio Conte after his red card in the chaotic 2-2 draw with Inter, which kept the Scudetto race alive. This Week 16 fixture was rescheduled from December due to Supercoppa Italiana commitments.

Juan Jesus was also suspended, joining injured Alex Meret, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Kevin De Bruyne, Billy Gilmour and Romelu Lukaku, while David Neres was only fit for the bench. Parma were coming off a 2-1 victory away to nine-man Lecce, but missed Pontus Almqvist, Vicente Guaita, Zion Suzuki, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Mathias Lovik and Matija Frigan. Carlos Cuesta revolutionised his team, including a three-man defence and Serie A debut for goalkeeper Filippo Rinaldi.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

The Partenopei broke through when Pasquale Mazzocchi, receiving his first Serie A start of the season, ran onto the Stanislav Lobotka ball floated over the top and pulled back from the by-line, Noa Lang prodded it onto the upright and Scott McTominay eventually managed to bundle over the line after a mad scramble. However, it was disallowed because Mazzocchi was millimetres offside in the build-up.

Napoli continued to dominate and Alessandro Buongiorno’s bullet header from a Lang cross on a short corner forced a great save out of debutant Rinaldi under the bar.

A rare Jacob Ondrejka counter-attack resulted in a shot straight at Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, but Rinaldi was again alert getting down to parry the Rasmus Hojlund chest and half-volley off the line.

Giovanni Di Lorenzo had to intercept Patrick Cutrone’s ball across the face of goal from the left before Oliver Sorensen could tap in, while Hojlund steered a header wide from Di Lorenzo’s cross.

McTominay had penalty appeals within moments of the restart, but replays showed the ball struck Alessandro Circati on the chest rather than the arm.

Circati was involved again when crashing into his own goalkeeper on a long Milinkovic-Savic pass, but Hojlund was unable to make the most of the favourable situation, hesitating and allowing Mandela Keita to clear. Moments later, Patrick Cutrone threw himself in the way of a Lang volley on the corner.

Napoli threw on David Neres, who immediately nutmegged Cristian Ordonez to create a dangerous scoring opportunity, but McTominay’s finish was too close to Rinaldi from the edge of the box on an Eljif Elmas lay-off.

Amir Rrahmani went on a strong run from deep for a shot deflected over from a tricky angle, but Stanislav Lobotka’s strike was too central to trouble Rinaldi.

Delprato made a decisive block to prevent Neres tapping in the Spinazzola roll across, but Neres was visibly nowhere near fit after being rushed back from an ankle sprain, and was replaced in the final minute.