Napoli director Giovanni Manna assures coach Max Allegri ‘is absolutely not in doubt,’ but President Aurelio De Laurentiis wanted to be ‘reassured’ ahead of the Bodo/Glimt match.
It kicks off at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona at 20.00 UK time (21.00 CEST).
President Aurelio De Laurentiis had dinner with Manna and coach Allegri this week, after a series of disastrous results culminating in the 1-0 defeat to rock bottom Serie A side Venezia on Saturday.
Now they need to get their first Champions League points of the season against Bodo/Glimt, having lost to Arsenal and Villarreal.
Manna and Napoli faith in Allegri
“We are constantly exchanging ideas, when we win or lose. Naturally, if we lose two in a row, including an ugly defeat to Venezia, it’s natural the President wants to be reassured,” Manna told Sky Sport Italia.
“There are many meetings that don’t get so much publicity. We’ve got to shut up and work, bring home points and put in an important performance. There’s no point thinking about Serie A right now, we need to knuckle down and get out of a situation that is not pleasant.”
Napoli confirmed their faith in Allegri, who was hired after his dismissal from Milan last summer.
“The coach is absolutely not in doubt,” added the director of sport.
“We know that the squad we gave him needs some adjustments, we were well aware of that. We need to raise the attention level and get out of this situation with consistency of both performances and results.”
There are seven players in the starting XI this evening that won the Scudetto under Luciano Spalletti four years ago, but Napoli on average have the highest age in Serie A and the second highest in the Champions League.
“It’s not fair to say the average age of the team is high, because there are other sides whose average is skewed by a couple of teenagers, otherwise they are very similar to ours,” noted Manna.
“Di Lorenzo is the captain, we cannot complain about him, Rrahmani, Politano and Lobotka. This squad is not at the end of the road, we knew that the idea was to bring in younger players, we were unable to do it this summer, but that is a further step for the next session.
“We have to grit out teeth and work, without listening to what people say, without talking too much, just getting those results.”