Kalidou Koulibaly admits “at this level if you don’t take your chances, then you won’t progress” after Napoli crashed out of the Europa League to Arsenal.
The Partenopei had opportunities in both legs of the quarter-final, but failed to find the net in a 2-0 defeat in London and 1-0 loss at the Stadio San Paolo.
Kalidou Koulibaly admits “at this level if you don’t take your chances, then you won’t progress” after Napoli crashed out of the Europa League to Arsenal.
The Partenopei had opportunities in both legs of the quarter-final, but failed to find the net in a 2-0 defeat in London and 1-0 loss at the Stadio San Paolo.
“We’ll watch the game back and then analyse it. We tried to unbalance Arsenal and it was very difficult. We created the chances to score and didn’t convert them, so at this level if you don’t take your chances, you won’t progress,” the defender told Sky Sport Italia.
“You can’t make any mistakes at this level, especially when you are already 2-0 down from the first leg. Arsenal scored with their first attempt and it’s really disappointing, because we had the chances to make life more difficult for them.
“We know it’s difficult to talk about the future after a defeat, but we reached the Europa League quarter-finals and it’s not enough. We have to do better. We came very close to qualifying from the Champions League group phase.
“We’ve seen that we are not far off Arsenal. The first half in London was too bad and affected everything that happened after that.”
Lorenzo Insigne seemed visibly upset after his substitution, largely because there were some jeers from the stands.
“Lorenzo always gives 100 per cent, he means a lot to us and in my view he represents Napoli. He wants to win in his hometown and that’s tough, so we must all help him.
“I really care about him and it makes me sad that he gets jeered, so I hope that stops.”
Koulibaly was furious about an incident in the penalty area during the second half, but was calmed down by ex-Genoa and Milan defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos.
“I got an elbow and felt irritated. Sokratis told me he didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe I was just irritable at the way the game was going.”