Napoli vs Arsenal

Napoli have started the season badly and lost their most important midfielder in the same week. Massimiliano Allegri's side have taken one point from three competitive matches (W1 D0 L2), 1.00 per game, and shipped five goals in the last two of them: beaten 2-1 at home by Como, then two goals up at San Siro before Inter turned it round to win 3-2. Politano and Højlund scored that night and it still was not enough. Scott McTominay, the driving runner Allegri built his midfield around, is out for around a month after a procedure for a mild arrhythmia.

Arsenal come the other way. Four wins in a row, 4W 0D 1L from five competitive matches this season, 2.20 goals scored and 0.80 conceded per game with three clean sheets. They beat Chelsea 2-1 on Sunday and won 1-0 at Aston Villa before that. There is unfinished business too: they lost last season's Champions League final on penalties to Paris Saint-Germain after a 1-1 draw, and this is the first night of the road back.

The market sees the gap. Arsenal are 1.84 to win in Naples and Napoli 4.28 at home, an unusual price for an Italian champion on its own grass. Napoli's answer has to come from the ball: they averaged 56% possession across the weighted season averages and 14.0 shots per match in their three competitive games with statistics. The problem is the 20.3 shots they have faced in the same three.

This is a match between the meanest defence either side will meet this month and a back line that has stopped functioning. Arsenal have conceded four goals in five competitive matches this season, three of them clean sheets, and only 0.27 expected goals against per game across that run. Napoli have conceded five in their last two alone.

Napoli are not short of the ball or of shots. They have scored in all three competitive matches and failed to score in none. But the shape of those games is the worry: 14.0 shots for and 20.3 against per match in the three with statistics, and only 4.60 shots on target per game across the weighted season averages. Against a side that concedes 2.79 shots on target per game on the same weighted measure, that is a thin route to two goals.

The history is blunt. Four competitive meetings, Arsenal three wins to Napoli's one, 1.75 goals per meeting, both teams scoring in none of them and over 2.5 goals in none of them. Old matches, different squads, but the market agrees with the direction: Under 2.5 is 1.87 and Both teams to score No is 1.94, both shorter than a neutral read of a Champions League night worth 2.89 goals on average.

Two things point the card count down. Glenn Nyberg is a light-touch referee, and Napoli's own matches have been quiet. The Swede has averaged 3.21 yellows a game across 328 career matches, with 0.05 reds and roughly 0.23 penalties per game, and he has taken charge of Arsenal twice in the Champions League without a defeat for them.

Napoli's three competitive matches with statistics produced 2.3 cards between both teams per match, and not one of them went past 3.5. Arsenal's four are the noisier set at 4.0 per match, but 2.5 of those went to the opposition - sides chasing Arsenal foul them, and Napoli chasing at home is exactly that script. Napoli commit 9.66 fouls per game on the weighted season averages, the lower of the two.

The corner count in this fixture is a story about who defends. Napoli's three competitive matches with statistics have averaged 11.3 corners in total, but only 4.0 of them were Napoli's own - they have conceded 7.3 a game. Arsenal's four have been the tidier games at 7.5 total, 4.8 for and 2.8 against.

Put the two profiles together and the honest midpoint sits just under ten. Arsenal do not need the ball to be dangerous - 41% possession against Manchester City and 61% at Villa produced four goals between them - and when they sit, they concede shots from distance rather than corners. Napoli will win more flag kicks than Arsenal here. The total is the softer side of the market.