Sarri urges Napoli to finish Champions League job

Date: 21st November 2017 at 11:46pm
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After keeping their Champions League hopes alive, Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri is hopeful that his side can now finish the job and qualify from the group phase.

The Partenopei struck three times in the second half against Shakhtar Donetsk through Lorenzo Insigne, Piotr Zielinski and Dries Mertens to ensure that they still have a chance of reaching the last 16.

That result means that Sarri’s side must now win away to Feyenoord in their final game and hope that Manchester City do them a favour, not that he will be phoning Pep Guardiola to ask for one.

“We are happy with the win and now we know that we need to go to Rotterdam and win, although we have to wait before we get the chance to do that,” the Napoli coach told the assembled media.

“Shakhtar are a strong side and they’ve done well. They made things difficult for us but I don’t think I’ll need to [make a call to Guardiola]. Mentally, Guardiola’s teams always want to win.

“They will be playing to do that and it will be a close game between City and Shakhtar. If you aren’t 100 percent against Shakhtar, then you will struggle.”

After a goalless first half at the Stadio San Paolo, Sarri also revealed what he said to his players at half-time in the dressing room to get them to turn things around and score three unanswered strikes in the second 45 minutes.

“All that we needed to do at half-time was make some tactical adjustments. Their midfielders were sitting very deep and Dries Mertens didn’t have to go out that far too meet them,” he added.

“It was just small things that we had to change. I told the team we needed more intensity and rhythm to our play like we showed when we made them struggle in the first half.”

 

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