Pippo Inzaghi explains why he is trying to give a more attacking approach to Salernitana even after the defeat to Napoli, but protests the opening goal ‘was offside.’
The Campania club remain without a single Serie A victory so far this season, although they did beat Sampdoria 4-0 in the Coppa Italia midweek.
That was only Inzaghi’s second game in charge after replacing sacked Paulo Sousa, after the 1-1 draw with Monza, then today he was only able to oversee a 2-0 home defeat to Napoli.
Giacomo Raspadori opened the scoring early on and Eljif Elmas finished it, although between those events Guillermo Ochoa made several saves and Matteo Politano clipped the frame of the goal.
“I think the applause at the final whistle is what we wanted. The team did its best against the Champions of Italy, we paid for a goal that was clearly offside and the linesman should’ve raised his flag. After that, Napoli were dangerous on a few counter-attacks, but until the 82nd minute I felt that we could get back into it,” Inzaghi told DAZN.
There were also protests about the Raspadori goal, because Mathias Olivera was offside in the build-up, but VAR could not intervene as Salernitana won the ball back and then lost it again, so the goal was a whole different situation.
So it was an error from the assistant referee, but not one VAR could resolve.
“I have seen some of the Salernitana that I like, we have a tough fixture list coming up, but I am convinced that with the spirit we saw today, we can climb out of this situation. There are lads in the side who did well on Tuesday and ought to be given time to develop and grow slowly, but we do not have time.
“I still maintain it was right to attack Napoli, because if you just defend against them, you will lose eventually. I chose four strikers to have a more courageous approach. We should’ve been more clinical with the opportunities we created.
“Unfortunately, it is not easy to even put many crosses into the Napoli box, let alone score goals.”
Salernitana are now 12 Serie A games without a win including last season, a club record negative streak.
Inzaghi has reshuffled their tactics a few times and today fielded a sort of 4-2-3-1 formation mutating into 4-4-2.
“When I arrived, the team had lost five of the first eight games and was clearly in need of a psychological boost. I think we have improved over the last two matches. I too must try to give them a signal by using more strikers and attacking midfielders, because it is with this approach and spirit we must get the points we need against the teams more on our level.
“I at first thought of using one striker with Dia, but he was not ready, so I had to move things around. We need physicality upfront, so just using Dia is not going to be enough. Hopefully Simy will be ready soon.”