Walter Mazzarri was furious after a 3-1 defeat to Lazio. “Napoli deserved to win and there was a stonewall penalty” on Goran Pandev.
Walter Mazzarri was furious after a 3-1 defeat to Lazio. “Napoli deserved to win and there was a stonewall penalty” on Goran Pandev.
Tonight’s clash was effectively a play-off for the third Champions League berth and was 1-1 at half-time after Pandev appeared to be barged off the ball.
“In my view the team played well. We pegged Lazio back into their own half for the entire opening 45 minutes, but struggled to score,” said the Coach.
“When it was 1-1 we were dominating, then there was a stonewall penalty on Pandev and that’s when the game changed. The incident is incredible, as Pandev was going straight to the goalkeeper and the defender paid no attention to the ball, just going straight on to my player.
“After the break we ran out of steam a little bit and our marking was too lax on Stefano Mauri’s goal.”
Napoli’s hopes of getting back into the Champions League are now slim, as they are six points behind Lazio and three adrift of Udinese” data-scaytid=”40″>Udinese.
“I don’t look at the table and I never have,” insisted Mazzarri. “We weren’t sharp against Juventus” data-scaytid=”42″>Juventus last week, but this time we deserved to win. It was simply an off day for the referee and our strikers.
“Now we have to look ahead to Wednesday’s game against Atalanta” data-scaytid=”43″>Atalanta. What I am interested in is that the team plays good football, which is what we did. Sadly our lack of experience compared to Lazio showed.”