It was an eventful midweek round of Serie A games, with plenty of thrills and spills in the Italian top-flight.
Leaders Napoli were victorious again, with Lecce, Torino, Fiorentina, Inter Milan and Lazio also on the winning side as Spezia and Udinese, Roma and Sassuolo and Cremonese and AC Milan played out draws.
Hirving Lozano made the difference for Napoli, while young goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi proved his credentials in denying the Rossoneri and Juventus veteran Leonardo Bonucci is struggling for form.
Below, Sportsmail‘s man in Italy Alvise Cagnazzo rounds up 10 things we learned from the latest fixtures in Italy.
Napoli continue to dominate the start of the season in Serie A after winning against Empoli
1 – LOZANO MAKING AN IMPACT
Napoli’s Hirving Lozano succeeded where Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini and Atalanta’s Teun Koopmeiners had failed: score the first penalty of the Serie A season past Empoli goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.
It took 69 minutes for leaders Napoli to break down the heroic resistance of Empoli, who resisted waves of the hosts’ attack and defended their goal with brilliant resilience.
Eventually, Lozano – one of the most criticised players this season – finally scored and radically changed the game. Shortly before the Qatar World Cup later this month, the Mexican winger has finally rediscovered his courage and tactical discipline.
Boss Luciano Spalletti does not consider him irreplacable, or perhaps even capable of playing 30-40 games this campaign, but could become a similar figure to Juan Cuadrado under Massimiliano Allegri at Juventus for the Tuscan coach.
He runs, he fights and above all he forces mistakes, pressuring opposition defender Sebastiano Luperto to make an error, resulting in a second yellow and, therefore, a red card.
Lozano flashed like a lightning bolt across the Diego Armando Maradona stadium and proved Spalletti has the magic touch with his substitutes.
While Inter Milan’s Simone Inzaghi has sometimes let games slip away with his substitutes, Spalletti often turns things around with his changes – even if the replacements only get 10 minutes on the pitch.
Hirving Lozano may have turned his form around for the league leaders after Empoli display
2 – UDINESE FADING FAST
In Italy, very often people run too much and think too little. And in the case of Udinese, they burst out of the blocks at the start of the Serie A race but have slowed down significantly in recent weeks.
Andrea Sottil…