by: Mostafa, Napoli fan
I originally wasn’t going to do this, but old habits die hard. I used to write articles analyzing Napoli’s matches, but for what it’s worth let me get down some of my thoughts on yesterdays game. 5, to be exact.
- 4-4-2:
Not working. It hasn’t been working, and won’t ever work with these players. 4-4-2 means we have two static strikers in the box waiting for crosses. How on earth are Lozano, Mertens, and Insigne going to get on the end of crosses? This formation not only takes out two strikers, who don’t move without the ball, but it makes the RB and RW redundant as well as the LB and LW redundant. It doesn’t matter if they overlap, because even if they do get a cross in no one will ever put it in. Shooting, of course, is not an option, because the wingers and sidebacks are glued to the sidelines, so if we’re not going to cross, we’re going to give it to our midfield.
- Midfield:
How much can you truly ask of the two midfielders? When they pass it to the wingers, the wingers will either cross- at which point it is booted out and there is a counter attack- and when they give it to the forwards its taken away. Since there are only two midfielders, if one goes up, we have about 40 meters that are covered by one person. It’s asinine. The midfielders, regardless of who they are, don’t really have the ability to take on several people at once, so they end up passing the ball back, or to the side, and nothing ever happens. This formation not only mutes the midfielders, but it leaves them extremely susceptible on the counter attack; if I didn’t know any better I’d say a Juventino is putting our gameplan.
- Players:
I’ve been commenting quite a bit about this lately, but I wanted to quantify just how poor our recruiting has been, and why this is starting to really show right now. Amin Younes, with all due respect, should not be playing for Napoli; what has he done for this club in one year? Fernando Llorente, with all due respect, should not be playing for us. Same goes for Mario Rui. Although he didn’t make any glaring errors yesterday, Manolas has been a huge downgrade to Albiol, something I thought I’d never say. DiLorenzo has been decent, Allan has mostly been rubbish since last January, and Milik, as always, is injured. Who can we rely on in this team? Definitely not Insigne, whose standard has been horrific since Ancelotti joined, bar four of five games. I’m not being pessimistic, but I am laying out facts; most of this team does not deserve to play for this club. We never properly replaced Albiol, Ghoulam (post Injury), Hamsik, Jorginho, and we convinced ourselves Milik could last without injuries, even after his second ACL. Here we are.
- Lack of Desire:
Despite the tactics, which are debilitating, the vast majority of the players don’t care. Never once do we get to the 80th minute and I feel we can maybe win this. Teams for Sunday League Football play with more heart than these players; there is no fear factor whatsoever. They are shameful.
- Genk:
As far as I’m concerned, this season is over, and Ancelotti is out, and there will be a mass exodus at one point or another. There is a time and place for discussing all of this, but it is absolutely critical for the club they at least tie against Genk on Tuesday so that we get cash- the same cash we’re going to miss out on for not finishing the top four. Either way a rebuild must start next Tuesday, but it will be easier if we have an extra 20 million Euros to do it with. The rest, after Genk.
Cheers!
Serie A Rants 