Napoli New-Boy Khvicha Kvaratskhelia Is Taking Serie A By Storm

Lorenzo who?

It is, of course, very early days but new Napoli signing Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is doing his best to make Neapolitans forget about the recently departed Lorenzo Insigne.

This is no easy feat, with Insigne the local-boy-made-good who starred for the club for close to a decade. Insigne left Napoli at the end of last season with his contract running out and the player himself deciding to leave for Toronto FC in a new challenge.

Despite his departure causing initial shock among Napoli — and Serie A — fans due to his choice of destination at the age of just 31, the truth of the matter is that Insigne had been poor last season.

Never the quickest player to begin with, Insigne seemed even slower last season, and his presence in the side slowed Napoli down. Moreover, with his increasingly worn-out ‘tiraggiro’ trick easily anticipated by opposing defenders and producing the law of diminishing returns, Insigne offered precious little to Napoli in an attacking sense.

Nine of his 11 goals last season came from the penalty spot, which somewhat exaggerated how productive he’d been for the Partenopei. And so once the initial shock of his departure had subsided, most recognised that Insigne leaving was arguably for the best.

Yet replacing him on that left-hand side wasn’t going to be easy, considering just how good he’d been during his peak years. Napoli fans would’ve likely expected a big-name replacement from club owner Aurelio De Laurentiis to quell the anguish. What they got instead was a player from Georgia who even the most astute of football observers would’ve struggled to know anything about.

Two Serie A match days later, and that’s no longer the case.

Kvaratskhelia has lit up the first two rounds of the season, playing an integral role in Napoli’s demolition of both Verona and Monza. They’ve scored nine goals across the two games, and Kvaratskhelia has chipped in with three of them. His first against Monza was a stunner, latching on to Piotr Zielinski’s fortuitous flick on the periphery of the box, Kvaratskhelia took two touches before arcing his third into the net via the post from 25 yards out, a goal Insigne would’ve been proud of.

His second was just as good, if not quite as emphatic. Following Kvaratskhelia’s opener, Victor Osimhen had already put the game to bed towards the end of the first half when Stanislav Lobotka charged deep into the Monza half. Lobotka, who has been one of the revelations of the Luciano Spalletti era, shifted the ball to his left into the waiting feet of Kvaratskhelia, who promptly sent defender Valentin Antov to the shops with a sharp dummy with his right foot, before drilling the ball hard with his left foot into the opposite corner of Michele Di Gregorio’s goal to make it 3-0.

Neapolitans have found themselves a new hero.

With Insigne gone and Fabian Ruiz seemingly also close to the exit, with talks over a move to Paris Saint-Germain ongoing, Napoli are a much quicker side this season. Ruiz, for all of his quality on the ball, isn’t the most mobile of players and tended to slow down Napoli’s game, as did Insigne in his latter years.

With a midfield of Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, Lobotka and Zielinski, in addition to new signing Tanguy Ndombele, Napoli will offer much more dynamism in Spalletti’s second season, a side who can break and use Osimhen’s soaring pace to full advantage.

This summer was a massive in terms of upheaval, with huge names in the locker room leaving. Kalidou Koulibaly, Dries Mertens and Insigne all left, and this is very much a new Napoli side. Giacomo Raspadori has also joined from Sassuolo, as has Giovanni Simeone and Keylas Navas could arrive on loan.

It’s been very impressive stuff from Napoli thus far, but we are still in the embryonic stages of the season and expectations need to be kept in check. Napoli won eight out of eight at the beginning of last season and still didn’t manage to win the title, finishing some seven points behind Milan.

“He is a player with real quality, a fine professional and a good lad,” said Spalletti of Kvaratskhelia after the game.“ He has this way of taking opponents on and knows where the goal is, can shoot with his right foot or his left. But he’s still getting loosened up.”

The 21-year-old has dazzled Serie A in the early going, with La Gazzetta dello Sport handing him 8/10 for the Monza performance. Once he ‘loosens up’ properly, the Napoletani could well forget about Insigne for real.