Max Allegri confessed to more tension with Kevin De Bruyne during Napoli’s 3-1 defeat to Villarreal. ‘If the midfield doesn’t press or help out, you’re going to struggle.’
The Partenopei leave Spain bruised and battered, as they had taken the lead through Amir Rrahmani, only to visibly crumble under the weight of their own errors.
A terrible Matteo Politano back-pass allowed Georges Mikautadze to equalise, followed moments later by the Santiago Mourino scorcher from distance.
Just as Napoli seemed ready to get back into it, they fell apart with Tani Oluwaseyi finishing off the 3-1 scoreline.
Allegri has Napoli concerns
“Champions League football is like this, you try to do your best, but once it is 1-1, you cannot concede the second straight away,” Allegri told Sky Sport Italia.
“We had a series of short passes in midfield that made no sense, they gave Villarreal time to press us, then it left Rafa Marin isolated under pressure for the shot. In the Champions League, you will have moments under pressure, but you cannot lose your way immediately and concede another immediately.”
The switch to a three-man defence seemed to work for Saturday’s 3-0 victory against Frosinone, but here it left them wide open to counter-attacks, and showed up the lack of pace in their defence.
“The characteristics of a team that knows its strength is that it doesn’t get stretched out, lots of players tried to sort it out themselves individually. I already said against Frosinone that we had four or five more chances where we made the wrong decisions in the final third, and we did that all again this evening.”
Napoli now have zero points from two Champions League fixtures, losing 1-0 at home to Arsenal and 3-1 away to Villarreal, but the performance was a definite step back from that opener.
“We can still do it, we need to knuckle down and get the points we need to go through. You can lose games, but not like this. We lacked patience and didn’t keep the ball,” continued Allegri.
Fabio Capello in the Sky Sport Italia studio complained that the Italian art of defending has been lost, and Allegri agreed.
“It has become almost something to be ashamed of, knowing how to defend. Our defenders did well today, but if the midfield doesn’t press or help out, you’re going to struggle. You need to win the ball back and then use it well. We gifted the first goal, but we always seem to allow shots from distance, and that’s a team issue.”
There seemed to be a bit of tension during the half-time break between Allegri and De Bruyne, so what were they discussing so animatedly?
“At one point I asked him to drop back and push McTominay further forward, as he has more technique and McTominay is more useful in attack, but we didn’t understand each other.”
This feels like a repeat of the interviews they gave after the 3-0 win over Frosinone, with Allegri reiterating he believes De Bruyne should be a deep-lying playmaker, and the Belgian admitting he is not a fan of this solution.
“If you defend well in midfield, naturally it gives you an advantage going forward,” added Allegri.
“We’ve had attacking situations all season, but we allow too many shots on goal, so we need to find a balance. Defensive solidity does not mean defending in front of your penalty area, it means not being stretched out constantly and having to run around all the time.
“It also means if you don’t take your chances when in attacking situations, you will suffer one on one and have to track back.”