Napoli boss Luciano Spalletti has admitted that Victor Osimhen could play in both Champions League games against Milan, and blamed the media narrative for Sunday’s 4-0 defeat.
Osimhen was not available for the league meeting between the two sides last weekend which was obviously a big blow for the Partenopei, however they had won all games without the Nigerian this season and still had Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
Spalletti spoke at his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow night’s trip to face Lecce and he was asked about Osimhen’s condition in view of the first leg of the quarter-final against Milan.
“Tomorrow there is no chance, with the schedule we said to go to next week. There are many possibilities to see him against Milan, but we have to wait for the practical development of next week’s work,” he said (via MilanNews).
Milan put down an early marker ahead of the two games to come as they put four past Napoli on Sunday night thanks to a brace from Rafael Leao plus goals from Brahim Diaz and Alexis Saelemaekers.
Spalletti was asked exactly what went wrong on the night for his side and he seemed to blame the media for branding them as unbeatable.
“You attributed the concept of infallibility to us. We have always remained humble and calm, knowing that we have defects like all teams. It was only the skill of the players that brought out the best qualities they have that made us win all the games,” he said.
“We know that Milan came to this match with the fear of losing it and we, probably with all the talk that is being made, with the belief that it could be a filling match in the league to get to those of the Champions League.
“After having talked serenely about what happened we know very well that from now on it will all be difficult battles to win to bring home this Scudetto. Until we are missing a single point in mathematics we will have done nothing, everything will be swept away, burned away in an instant until we get that point there.
“We’ve mentally prepared ourselves for what we’re going to find, always considering that to win titles in a league there’s more to managing or winning games from start to finish, there’s also having to train, work, talk about some defeats like this one here.
“We already spoke the next morning, I told them, Di Lorenzo also spoke. We got there with different reasons than theirs, they showed they are the Italian champions, we didn’t show that we are the leaders with merit. There was no re-aggression after Zielinski’s turnover, they had open field, we lost some principles that are fundamental for us.”
There’s no way Napoli can loose this title not just because they will win the games needed but just as importantly all the teams below them have thrown away so many points, that’s a massive reason they look so dominant this year. Look at Juve, docked 15 points and still in with a good chance of top 4 finish. I have no doubt Napoli will win although I hope they are mentally scarred, get beat by Lecce (columbo goals pkease) and then face us on the back of a bit of a bad run.
There’s no doubt in my mind if we had beaten them the first time around earlier in the season, that the table would look massively different. But such is football