Napoli director Cristiano Giuntoli explains why Gennaro Gattuso sent Mario Rui and Faouzi Ghoulam to the stands. ‘They weren’t totally focused.’
The game with Bologna kicks off at 17.00 GMT, click here for the line-ups and LIVEBLOG.
There was a surprise when Mario Rui and Ghoulam were not even on the bench, despite having made the trip to the Stadio Dall’Ara.
Napoli director Cristiano Giuntoli explains why Gennaro Gattuso sent Mario Rui and Faouzi Ghoulam to the stands. ‘They weren’t totally focused.’
The game with Bologna kicks off at 17.00 GMT, click here for the line-ups and LIVEBLOG.
There was a surprise when Mario Rui and Ghoulam were not even on the bench, despite having made the trip to the Stadio Dall’Ara.
It emerged this was a technical decision by coach Gennaro Gattuso after Thursday's 2-1 Europa League win at Rijeka.
“What happened is we know our coach, he wants to see everyone totally focused. He saw they weren’t totally focused, so decided they could rest,” Giuntoli told Sky Sport Italia.
“They weren’t concentrated or sharp enough in the final training session, so he made this decision. He saw they weren’t entirely on their toes and made this choice.
“We are coming off a strange game where we certainly got the first half wrong, made up for it after the restart, and that is a psychological issue. The coach tries to counter that by making his decisions to spur them on.”