Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis admits Dries Mertens “has not clarified” his future and warns “keeping someone against their will is not good for anyone.”

The patron spoke at the Press conference marking Lorenzo Insigne’s contract extension to June 2022 and dropped some hints about the Mertens situation.

Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis admits Dries Mertens “has not clarified” his future and warns “keeping someone against their will is not good for anyone.”

The patron spoke at the Press conference marking Lorenzo Insigne’s contract extension to June 2022 and dropped some hints about the Mertens situation.

“Lorenzo Insigne is unique, he plays his own style of football and cannot be compared to anyone else. He was born with love, passion and ardour for this city. He wants to be a legend for Napoli and always declared he wanted to stay here.

“If someone doesn’t want to stay, then keeping them against their will is not good for anyone. If we are engineers, then we can build a project and lose a few pieces along the way. That won’t change our overall plan. In my view, it’s boring to always train the same players.

“Napoli is a container with some legends who cannot be removed, like Marek Hamsik or Insigne, but the rest of it is in flux. If you change Coach, he’ll have a different style of football. If you change players, they’ll adapt to the side. Football is not mathematics.”

While Manchester United have approached Mertens, the main problem for the Belgium international seems to be the desire of his wife to leave Naples.

“You have to love the city of Naples, or you can leave. Naples is not like living in Turin or Manchester,” continued movie producer De Laurentiis.

“The history of the city continues to develop, year after year, century after century, with millions of stories that can wrap you up in them if you let it happen.

“To people who say: ‘Oh I could never live in Naples’ – then go. Who wants you here? Who asked you?

“When players are appreciated by other clubs, I am pleased, just as I am when other studios try to take my star actors or directors. They can try, but they won’t, because I know how to write contracts. I approach nothing in a vague manner.

“Mertens has a family situation that you all know, he has not clarified 100 per cent, and we are waiting to see what happens. Funnily enough, the calls he’s getting are due to all the goals he scored thanks to Maurizio Sarri. With a different Coach or teammates, he probably wouldn’t score so many.

“This is why I say that in football you need immense humility. There’s nothing guaranteed. People ask me what happens if Chelsea make another offer for Kalidou Koulibaly? Our defence would be no weaker without him, because there are alternatives. We leave nothing to chance.

“I don’t want anyone to leave and so will try to keep hold of them, but if they want to leave or some crazy person comes along offering to pay the release clause, then we’ll get over it, just as we did in the past.”

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