MY ACCOUNT
Luciano Spalletti has refuted suggestions Napoli’s Scudetto triumph is a mere “formality”, ruling out the prospect of the Partenopei focusing on their Champions League campaign.
Napoli suffered just their second defeat of the Serie A season against Lazio last time out, though they still boast a 15-point lead over Inter at the summit ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Atalanta.
With Napoli’s first league title since the Diego Maradona era appearing to be on the horizon, some have suggested Spalletti could manage his squad ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt.
Napoli hold a 2-0 lead at the midway point of that last-16 tie, but Spalletti says his team are not in any position to prioritise future games.
“We always talk about future matches, I’ve already said many times that it doesn’t work like that for us. We face them one at a time and the focus is all on the match against Atalanta,” he said.
“We don’t have the presumption of being able to manage a championship as if it were a formality or an obstacle to other more important matches.
“The obstacle is only Atalanta for now and they are very strong for many reasons. It is a huge challenge, you have to deserve the final result to bring it home, they are a great team.”
With several potential challengers having dropped away, Spalletti was asked when the title could realistically be secured, but he remains uninterested in such talk.
“It will be possible when there isn’t another team in a position to take as many points as us. Guys, we still have to play many even games,” he said.
“We have seen what quality there is in Italy despite what they say in the European comparisons, this says a lot about the difficulties of bringing home the results.
“Against Lazio we didn’t do anything wrong to lose to them, but we found ourselves without any points.
“I watch the matches, I have them reviewed, and I’m sure there is no need to have a reaction because the performance was there in an important way, but we were facing another team that did important things and took advantage of a moment in their favour.”
Napoli are looking to improve on their poor home record against Atalanta, having only won one of their last four league games against Gian Piero Gasperini’s side in Naples (D1 L2).
Having suffered a 3-2 defeat in this fixture last season, Napoli could lose consecutive home games against Atalanta for just the second time in Serie A, having previously done so in 1997.
