Maurizio Sarri has hailed Napoli new boy Adam Ounas as “a young player with great potential” but warned “it’d be wrong to burden him”.
Ounas has scored three goals and assisted as many in his first four friendlies for Napoli since arriving from Bordeaux earlier in the summer, but Sarri was wary of hyping the winger up too much.
“A lot of hard work and enthusiasm of the fans remains. I’m satisfied with the attitude of the lads,” the Coach said at a Press conference.
Maurizio Sarri has hailed Napoli new boy Adam Ounas as “a young player with great potential” but warned “it’d be wrong to burden him”.
Ounas has scored three goals and assisted as many in his first four friendlies for Napoli since arriving from Bordeaux earlier in the summer, but Sarri was wary of hyping the winger up too much.
“A lot of hard work and enthusiasm of the fans remains. I’m satisfied with the attitude of the lads,” the Coach said at a Press conference.
“We’ve working like we always have, with lots of rhythm. Friendlies give absolutely no answers at this stage as they’re used to put minutes in the players’ legs.
“The transfer market? Napoli isn’t my club but De Laurentiis’. He’s the one who makes decisions for the club, I just roll with it.
“I don’t have any special requests, they’ll give me a squad and I’ll coach that squad.
“Ounas? He’s a young player with great potential, but it’d be wrong to burden him with responsibility.
“The Scudetto? Having a great second half to last season doesn’t give us any assurances for the next. I rely on numbers and statistics.
“We finished third and there are two clubs like Milan and Inter that are both having very important transfer campaigns.
“I think it’s wrong to believe we’re among the favourites. I don’t want us to fail.
“We haven’t had a market that has upset the team, if everything goes to plan then we’ll be the same as last season and we’ll hve two teams in front of us.
“Growth? We have to make more use of set-pieces and stop conceding stupid goals: we can improve in these areas
“The team don’t have the same margins for improvement as they did two years ago, now we’re work on finer details.
“Chievo? Our opponents were sharper than us, but it’s normal. It depends on workloads, what you did the day before or in the morning.
“If I wanted the team to play at their best, I wouldn’t have held a certain training session in the morning. All our opponents are waiting for us, so we have to get used to that.
“Certain players? The Maksimovic deal has proved relatively expensive, considering the figures, but needless to say, it was a normal deal in the current climate.
“He didn’t announce himself last season for so many reasons, tactical and physical ones. He had a problem with his foot, but we hope everything is resolved.
“Certainly we expect better performances, even from Milik. They are two players who can give us something more.
“Ghoulam and Mario Rui are two similar players, I don’t see a lot of difference between them.
“Reina? I trust him 101 percent. He has great quality and is very much attached to this group, there’s no issue with him.
“Mertens? It’s hard to tell a guy who’s scored 36 goals in eight months he’s not a striker and that he’ll go back to playing out wide.
“He certainly will on occasions, he’s a lad that makes himself available, although equally he wouldn’t like to go back there on a regular basis.
“I’d agree with him as he’s proved to be better as a striker than a midfielder or winger.”