“We only have to worry when we don’t create chances, but now we are creating them. I was worried by Wednesday’s performance against Feyenoord, but not this one,” said Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri after a 0-0 draw at home to Fiorentina on Sunday. “The best opportunities landed at the feet of Piotr Zielinski, who is not the kind of player who scores often. It’s the kind of game where if you win 1-0, everyone says Napoli have found themselves again.”
Perhaps if taken in isolation his comments were fair enough, but on closer inspection, they smacked of an attempt to deflect attention from a real problem in the Napoli camp. The beginning of the season saw the Partenopei get off to a blinding start, looking almost unstoppable with 12 wins and two draws from their opening 14 matches.
Through the month of September they blitzed Bologna 3-0, Benevento 6-0 and secured an impressive 4-1 victory over an in-form Lazio, leading many to compare their start to that of Premier League Manchester City. Indeed, they would face Pep Guardiola’s side in the Champions League group stages and – although the Italians lost both of their matches against them – the Catalan boss was impressed enough with their performance to label them “the best side I have ever faced”.
This was all well and good when Sarri was playing his usual 4-3-3 formation with his preferred starting XI. However, after sprinting out of the blocks and ahead of the opposition, they are now finding themselves badly out of breath. A Champions League exit followed defeat to Juventus, the 2-1 loss to Feyenoord preceding Sunday’s match with the Viola.
His side are second only to Roma in terms of the number of shots fired in towards goal with an average of 18.5 per game, but against Fiorentina they only managed 10, and just four of those were on target. This was the first time that the Partenopei have ever gone scoreless in consecutive league games under Sarri, the last time back in 2014 under Rafael Benitez.
So what is the problem here? It all started at the beginning of November with the injury to left-back Faouzi Ghoulam against Manchester City. The Algerian was a key part of the side’s early success, adding two goals and three assists to his accomplished defensive displays. His ACL rupture means that Sarri has instead had to call on Mario Rui, a player not nearly at the same level in terms of quality as Ghoulam.
Yet in other areas, Sarri does have quality back-up players. The likes of Nikola Maksimovic, Emanuele Giaccherini and Amadou Diawara have not had nearly enough playing time against the lesser sides in Serie A. The Coach instead insisted on fielding his first choice line-up against the likes of Benevento, with that match in particular a real waste of resources. Their 6-0 victory may have wowed spectators, but did they really need to fire 27 shots on goal and keep 71.8% possession when a 2-0 win with a rotated lineup would’ve been sufficient?
This overuse of his players has inevitably led to injuries to the likes of Insigne – who had played in 60 consecutive matches before missing the match with Feyenoord last week – and the others looking jaded against Fiorentina. The Partenopei have eight players who have started at least 13 out of 16 league matches, whereas only Gonzalo Higuain and Mario Mandzukic have started this many matches for Juventus.
It is no surprise that the Old Lady is well-versed in the art of squad rotation after having won six Serie A titles in a row, and defeat to her in the last three seasons has highlighted Napoli’s weaker mentality. Whilst Juve have bounced back well from disappointment, Maurizio Sarri has struggled to galvanise his squad following defeat to their title rivals. The 2015/16 campaign was a perfect example of this when the two sides met in Turin in early February.
Up until this point, the Bianconeri had never once been in top spot in the entire campaign, but an 88th minute winner over Napoli saw them overtake them and move into first position. By the end of the month Sarri’s side were out of the Champions League and had suffered disappointing draws to Milan and Fiorentina, and they would never regain that coveted top spot.
It may seem premature to say it, but Napoli’s title hopes could already be fading fast after such a lightning start. The Coach now faces a battle to return Insigne to fitness, and figure out a way to bring Dries Mertens back to prominence, the previously free-scoring Belgian having failed to contribute any goals or assists in the league since October 29. Whilst Sarri has undoubtedly mastered the art of beautiful football, he still has a long way to go in terms of squad rotation, grit and grinding out important results if he wants to lift the Scudetto trophy by the end of May.
