Napoli stride towards CL spot

Napoli closed on a Champions League spot with a 3-0 victory over struggling Pescara on Saturday.

Napoli opened up a 10-point advantage over third-place AC Milan and moved closer to sealing their place in the Champions League next season thanks to a comfortable 3-0 win over struggling Pescara. Pescara goalkeeper Ivan Pelizzoli tried to provide some resistance for Serie A's bottom club, but once the first goal was scored by Gokhan Inler in the 46th minute, there was no looking back for Napoli. Goran Pandev and Blerim Dzemaili added further goals to prevent Juventus from being able to celebrate winning the Scudetto tomorrow, and leave Pescara eight points from safety with four games of the season remaining. Napoli had a goal disallowed in the 16th minute when former Pescara striker Lorenzo Insigne was adjudged to have been in an offside position after the referee had consulted with his linesman, and realised that his team mate Dzemaili had played the ball through. Two minutes later, Marek Hamsik tested Pelizzoli, who tipped the ball over the crossbar for his first of many interventions in the first half He made a great save to deny Insigne's header before Miguel Britos headed wide from the resulting corner. Ten minutes before half time, Pelizzoli was at full stretch again to push Dzemaili's free-kick wide of the post. There was nothing the Pescara custodian could do to keep out Inler's shot after 40 seconds of the second half with the ball taking a wicked deflection off Marco Capuano to wrong-foot him. He did deny Pandev with yet another top-drawer save in the 54th minute, though, before being beaten by the Macedonian four minutes later after he turned on the edge of the six-yard box after picking up Christian Maggio's cross, and shooting into the far corner. Pelizzoli had to raise the white flag himself due to injury with Mattia Perin coming on. The new goalkeeper only had to pick the ball out of the back of his net once, although he had no chance of keeping Dzemaili's 25-yard effort out as Napoli sealed their win in style.