Maurizio Sarri admits Faouzi Ghoulam’s injury “really affected morale” at Napoli, but they came back to flatten Lazio 4-1. “I enjoyed the second half.”

Stefan de Vrij had given Lazio the early lead, just as he did at the Stadio Olimpico earlier this season, but once again the Partenopei fought back for a 4-1 victory.

Maurizio Sarri admits Faouzi Ghoulam’s injury “really affected morale” at Napoli, but they came back to flatten Lazio 4-1. “I enjoyed the second half.”

Stefan de Vrij had given Lazio the early lead, just as he did at the Stadio Olimpico earlier this season, but once again the Partenopei fought back for a 4-1 victory.

“The truth is that if we play like we did in the second half, we can beat anyone. If we play like in the first half, we’ll have problems,” Sarri told Sky Sport Italia and Mediaset Premium.

“it’s no coincidence Lazio are third in Serie A and they are a very strong side. What happened over the last couple of days affected us and we fell into playing a more physical game than we had intended.

“In the first half, we couldn’t play our football, so the objective coming out for the second was to pass the ball in our usual style. I enjoyed the second half and it was fun watching it from above.”

Sarri was sent off from the touchline for dissent just before half-time.

“I thought Sergej Milinkovic-Savic should’ve seen red and not yellow, because he was fouling a lot and then put his arm across Jose Callejon’s face. I didn’t appreciate that. It was something VAR should’ve looked at too.”

Napoli had a very rough few days, as first Faouzi Ghoulam fractured his kneecap in training when on the verge of a comeback from ACL surgery, then Vlad Chiriches pulled out with a thigh strain.

As a tribute, the entire team came out before kick-off wearing Ghoulam’s jersey.

“There was a lot of tension in the first half, because Ghoulam’s injury struck all of us. It was an incident that really affected morale. This morning Chiriches got hurt too, so it’s been a very difficult couple of days, emotionally.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tickets Kit Collector