Nice Coach Lucien Favre bitterly criticised Mario Balotelli after the 2-0 defeat to Napoli. “He should’ve come off a lot earlier.”
The striker was practically anonymous at the Allianz Riviera, but above all was on the touchline trying to get some jewellery covered after the restart, leaving Nice down to 10 men while Jose Callejon scored the goal.
“I don’t want to talk about his performance,” Favre told Mediaset Premium.
Nice Coach Lucien Favre bitterly criticised Mario Balotelli after the 2-0 defeat to Napoli. “He should’ve come off a lot earlier.”
The striker was practically anonymous at the Allianz Riviera, but above all was on the touchline trying to get some jewellery covered after the restart, leaving Nice down to 10 men while Jose Callejon scored the goal.
“I don’t want to talk about his performance,” Favre told Mediaset Premium.
“It was a negative performance and he should’ve come off a lot earlier.”
The Coach reiterated the same message in his Press conference.
“Mario did not play well and I should’ve replaced him earlier. I call it the way I see it, he wasn’t good enough tonight. I don’t know what happened on the first goal. I just saw there was something between Balotelli and the officials.
“Allan Saint-Maximin was strong with his individual runs, but it’s easy when you only play with the ball. He has to work very hard, because playing as part of a team is another matter. The tie came a little early for Wesley Sneijder to do more.
“The Europa League is the right level for Nice and it’ll be a difficult tournament,” added Favre of their 4-0 aggregate defeat.
“Napoli are strong, they have been at the top for a while and playing the same style of football for years. Tactically and physically, they were fantastic tonight. From the moment we got them in the draw, I knew it was going to be very difficult.
“We didn’t defend well enough and did better against Ajax in the last round. We were more open in the first half, but struggled to win back possession and then spark attacking moves.”