Napoli post-match thread

It was a unique match, I look forward to rewatching it many times as well as the return leg in a fortnight. I agree with Pep too, I can't recall a more impressive attacking side a Guardiola side has faced

They are an excellent side. It was a bit like watching City v City as the styles were so similar. It will be tough out there and I would take a draw now.
 
It was a unique match, I look forward to rewatching it many times as well as the return leg in a fortnight. I agree with Pep too, I can't recall a more impressive attacking side a Guardiola side has faced
Guardiola is always ridiculously over-effusive about the opposition. I wish he would not do that.

Monaco were more impressive. I thought shakhtar were as good as them. Offensively Napoli offered little. What they did well was press very hard and that maybe why we gave away possession a lot more than usual. Shakhtar are very under rated and I would not be surprised if they go through with City instead of Napoli.
 
They are an excellent side. It was a bit like watching City v City as the styles were so similar. It will be tough out there and I would take a draw now.

Never, always go for the win. Play football for the spectacle not to avoid losing

I think an area where Napoli look better atm is how incisive, quick and assured they are with the 1 touch passing in very tight spaces. Sarri's side actually looked closer to Pep's ideal vision in that respect, IMO. Where City really put Napoli to the sword early was out wide and I really think they should've continued to exploit that more, Leroy was absolutely destroying Hysaj in particular
 
Guardiola is always ridiculously over-effusive about the opposition. I wish he would not do that.

Monaco were more impressive. I thought shakhtar were as good as them. Offensively Napoli offered little. What they did well was press very hard and that maybe why we gave away possession a lot more than usual. Shakhtar are very under rated and I would not be surprised if they go through with City instead of Napoli.

He's passionate and sometimes he can over dramitize praise but it comes from respect. I'd still choose Napoli over Monaco in terms of attacking flair because once City were able to beat the Monaco press they met very little resistance from Monaco whereas Napoli were defending and passing out all over the pitch with much better precision that Monaco.

Monaco (last season) are not far behind Sarri's Napoli for me but I've never seen a side other than peak Barcelona play that precisely in tight spaces
 
Tough game, I'd say I was disappointed with how we faded in the second half , but this isn't fair n the effort the players put in. To put it in to perspective, Napoli are top of Serie A and beat Juventus recently, they were never going to cave in and almost created a scenario where scoring two goals at home would not have been enough for us. They didn't sit back and if we hadn't have made that lightening start we could have found it a very difficult game to get something from. At least that is what I am hoping, rather than fatigue is setting in.

A third for us would have made it much more comfortable, but maybe it isn't a bad thing for the team to be reminded that they have to fight for everything. But i still feel that the guys would have found another gear if needed, my concern is more that we could be exposed by an opponents game management at some point, especially in Europe. But not every game can be shooting practice.

Stones and Ederson were immense, which probably says a lot about what we had to do to win this one, but Jesus showed great strength and control to give us an outlet repeatedly.

Second one definitely a pen, first i thought at the time their player leaned back in to Walker and not seen it again since, but either way when you look at the overall key moments we created our own problems to a large extent, but have to accept that Napoli got into those position more frequently than many league teams ever will against us, so had more opportunity to make the ref make these decisions, and make us make decisions defensively. Maybe a Danilo type to freshen up the midfield would have worked, but trust Pep knows best and bringing on two midfielders who can keep the ball was his preferred option. It worked ultimately.

The return will be interesting.
 

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