Luciano Spalletti was satisfied after Napoli’s 3-1 win over Girona in their pre-season friendly tonight, and he spoke highly of talented forward Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
The Partenopei were held to a 1-1 draw against the Spanish side for most of the match, until Andrea Petagna and Kvaratskhelia restored their advantage in the final 13 minutes of the match. The win was Napoli’s first of their pre-season retreat in Castel di Sangro, having picked up draws against Adana Demirspor and Mallorca.
Speaking via TuttoNapoli, Spalletti first reacted to Napoli’s win, looking satisfied.
“I’m quite satisfied, we pressed right away, we recovered the ball many times, then in cleaning up possession we weren’t’ as clear as we can be.
“We questioned the ball so many times, missed easy passes and we had to struggle a lot in coming back to press high or track back and they’re wasteful runs.
“We have to handle this better and we will be fresher with ideas, we created chances to score more but we didn’t, some movement was wrong and we conceded several counters, but if you press that hard it’s difficult.”
He gave his thoughts on the goal that Napoli conceded.
“You have to be careful, holding up man-to-man, in previous games we had conceded because of ourselves, this time I’d say they did well to put it there behind the line, it was a quality goal of theirs.”
The Napoli coach gave his thoughts on Georgian talent Kvaratskhelia.
“He has that potential, he shoots, he’s technical, he gets out of situations when nobody expects it and gives you an outlet. You noticed it, we knew it!”
Spalletti spoke about the work that still needs to be done ahead of the upcoming season.
“Compact team, united, not stretching and conceding counters like tonight, increasing stamina a little bit, tonight we got up to 65 minutes with a system and we need to get up to 90 minutes, even if 5 changes are a good amount.”
Finally, Spalletti discussed the work of Alex Meret in the match.
“A couple of good saves, I read that last time he was told something, it was acceptable, tonight he made good saves, we aim for double roles in every department and Meret is alone, we will evaluate things at the end of the market.”
Napoli’s final pre-season friendly is against Espanyol on August 6, with their Serie A opener kicking off on August 15.
How about investing in more Italian youth talent?
Now, THAT would make sense toward improving the quality of the Italian Nazionale talent pool.