Paolo Cannavaro has called on his Napoli teammates to take games to their opponents, rather than wait to fall behind before playing their best football.
Paolo Cannavaro has called on his Napoli teammates to take games to their opponents, rather than wait to fall behind before playing their best football.
The last month has proven frustrating for Cannavaro and the Partenopei, with three consecutive League games without a win followed up in midweek with a first leg defeat to Siena in the Coppa Italia semi-finals.
“What happened yesterday has been happening in the last few games,” said Cannavaro on Friday.
“We are punished for our first error, then we force the play and take risks and we cannot overturn the result. There is no lack of effort or tactical problems, we are penalised by such episodes.”
The captain continued to analyse where things went wrong last night and where they have in previous outings.
“The first half was not inspiring, across we faced 11 players possessed, then they dropped in the second half and closed in around the penalty area. We need to start games differently.
“I understand the current situation [with unhappy fans], but in two years we have done so much that this month cannot delete it. We need to close ranks and overcome this situation, we want to make our fans happy.
“We are trying to be calm even now. We analyse the games and will remove the invidual mistakes. Of course we cannot blame just bad luck, we must improve and we know that.
“There is no resting on our laurels, it does not remove the current reality for the team.
“We are wrong to react only after conceding a goal, we should immediately be protagonists. Now we are calm.”
The question was put to Cannavaro about whether or not the tactics will need to change in order to help the situation.
“We are always ready to change, we can play three or four, depending on the opponent. [Walter] Mazzarri believes strongly in his ideas and rightly so.
“The question of the formation is reductive, when we are behind in games we will always have to take risks.”