Avani Cut City To Size

Edinson Cavani

Uruguay and Napoli forward Edinson Cavani's brace was all Napoli need to raise their hopes of qualifying to the 1/16th stage of the 2011/2012 UEFA Champions league alive thus putting Manchester City's hopes of qualification on rocks.

Napoli are second on the log with 8 points whilst German side Bayern Munich lies at the summit of the table with 13 points leaving the English side Man City on third with 7 points in Group A.

Cavani put the Italian side ahead in the 17th minute with a glancing header from Ezequiel Lavezzi's corner that beat City's goalie Joe Hart in the near post but City responded quickly and leveled the scores in the 32nd minute from Mario Balotelli's near post tap-in.

Four minute from the restart was enough for Cavani to put his side back in front of the game when he picked up Andrea Dossena's pass from the left to steer a beautiful volley under Hart to dash City's dream at Naples.

Napoli employed the counter after their second goal and almost got their third deep in the half when City's central defender Vincent Kompany's slip gifted Lavezzi a goal scoring opportunity but Joe Hart managed to block his shot.

City were second time lucky in the second half when Kolarov mistake put Napoli's forward Hamsik through but although his shot beat Hart, it came back off the post and the English side for the second time survived Napoli scare.

City could have leveled the scores late in the game however, but Mario Balotelli was denied by Morgan De Sanctis thus leaving City third on the log and facing a more difficult in a fourth night when they meet group leaders Bayern Munich at the Etihad stadium whiles Napoli travels to pointless Villarreal.