Alisson Santos and Eljif Elmas were on target as Napoli earned a hard-fought 2-1 win over Torino at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Brazilian winger Santos drilled home early and Elmas lashed in a second, before Napoli held out after Cesare Casadei's late consolation to leave themselves third and just a point behind second-place Milan in Serie A.

It took just seven minutes for Santos to jink in from the left flank and brilliantly hit a low daisy-cutter into the near corner.

Nikola Vlasic tested Vanja Milinkovic-Savic with a couple of efforts as Torino sought a swift response, before Rasmus Hojlund wastefully headed over Matteo Politano's teasing cross for Napoli.

Santos and Hojlund were both denied by Alberto Paleari early in the second half, but they did find a second when Leonardo Spinazzola's left-wing cross was cushioned down by Politano and fired home by Elmas.

Casadei nodded past Milinkovic-Savic from Adams' cushioned header into his path to set up a nervy ending, though it was too little too late for Torino.

Data Debrief: Santos sizzles for Napoli

Napoli's title defence has not gone how they would have planned this season, but they are unbeaten in their first 13 Serie A home games (W9, D4) of the season for the first time since 2018-19 (W10, D3).

Santos got his side off to a flier and he is only the fifth player to score in his first two Serie A home games for Napoli in the three-points-for-a-win era (since 1994-95), after Nicola Caccia (September 1996), Jose Callejon (August-September 2013), Arkadiusz Milik (August-September 2016) and Lorenzo Tonelli (January 2017).

He is also only one of two Napoli players, along with Spinazzola, to have scored more than one goal from outside the box in Serie A this season (both have two).

Spinazzola (3G, 3A) has been involved in at least six goals in a single Serie A season for only the second time in his career.