Forget the false 9. Traditional No. 9’s are back in vogue in Serie A.

From Romelu Lukaku to Ciro Immobile and Andrea Belotti — and even the brand new-look Cristiano Ronaldo — outdated-original heart forwards are grabbing the highlight because the Italian League approaches its halfway level this weekend.

The final spherical of matches was a case in level, with a hat trick from Ronaldo and a number of targets from Lukaku, Immobile and Belotti.

Even Napoli, which led the current motion towards false nines — the usage of a extra agile midfielder-like participant on the heart ahead place — has relied extra on the bodily prowess of Arkadiusz Milik for targets this season than the speedy and elusive Dries Mertens.

Meanwhile, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is just one sport into his Serie A return with AC Milan.

Immobile’s 19 targets in 17 matches are a giant cause why Lazio is placing collectively an surprising run for its first Serie A title in 20 years. The Italy worldwide is tied with Bayern Munich ahead Robert Lewandowski on the high of the Golden Shoe standings as probably the most prolific striker in Europe this season.

While Immobile doesn’t have the identical bodily stature of many conventional No. 9’s, his vertical strikes have been in excellent synch with crossing specialists Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Luis Alberto.

For Lukaku, it’s been all about his extremely productive pairing with Inter Milan teammate Lautaro Martinez. Dubbed “LuLa,” the duo has scored 23 targets in Serie A this season — seven greater than all of AC Milan.

The muscular Belotti is a giant cause why Torino is in the highest half of the standings, organising a duel with Immobile for the beginning heart ahead place on Italy’s nationwide workforce. That’s a place additionally coveted by Mario Balotelli, who’s beginning to rating constantly once more at Brescia.

Since his November hunch, Ronaldo has proven extra willingness to share Juventus’ assault with Paulo Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain and the outcomes have been greater than optimistic. In his final 5 league matches, Ronaldo has scored eight targets, together with his first Serie A hat trick towards Cagliari and two towards Udinese — not dangerous for a participant who will flip 35 subsequent month.

This weekend, Ronaldo will go head-to-head with one other traditional No. 9 in Edin Dzeko at Roma.

With Juventus and Inter degree on the high of the standings, Lukaku and Martinez will doubtless want one other productive match when it hosts Atalanta, which received each of its earlier matches 5-zero.

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