Yes, because losing to Inter, which is the strongest team in Italy, and losing to Juventus and Real Madrid away is the equivalent to losing to Empoli and Berlin at home in your last two matches, two teams which where arguably 2 of the 10 worst teams in the top 5 leagues. I don't like defending Mazzarri, because I'm not his biggest fan, but he hasn't had any time to work with the squad before he was thrown in the Lion's Den with his first 4 games. This is evidental when you see that the teams he chose for the matches where the same players in the same system/style as Garcia had them in - this is most likely because there is no time nor occasion to try implementing something different. As I see it the only thing Mazzarri could work with was the motivation and expression of the team, which I think has been slightly better. It's not like Napoli deserved the losses or got outplayed, except for the match against Real Madrid. Inter gave us a lesson in being effective, while the Juventus game, which was an away game against a clear scudetto runner, was very even. If anything you could see the fallout of the Garcia era more so than the faults of Mazzarri with the current team: the same players that where bad under Garcia are still causing trouble under Mazzarri, here I'm mostly talking about ridiculously out of form Anguissa and Zielinski. Also when they conceded 1 goal against Inter, Napoli completely fell apart the same way they did under Garcia (and this 100 % erupted under Garcia): playing very rushed because you go 1 goal down even though there's 50 more minutes to play. Furthermore Mazzarri has not only had the same CB problems Garcia also suffered from, but he hasn't had any left backs either. Garcia was a disaster and deservedly got sacked. The verdict is still out on Mazzarri and I think he deserves more time before we write him off. Remember he's only here as a favour and he accepted a contract basically ridiculing his name.
You're defending a coach that had Napoli placed 16th in the league based on home games. You should walk to Naples and explain that to the local fans. At the end of the day they have a lot to say
So far I haven't seen much difference between the results under the two coaches, and the same problems are dragging the team down on the field (absolute shit finishing, weakness in the right side of midfield, the near complete failure to get anything of value from two of our recruits). But Garcia failed at shooting fish in barrels, and Mazzarri is failing at spearfishing great white sharks. A month ago three were three games that we had to win against comparatively weak opponents and we completely choked, and that's why Garcia's gone. Now we have three more of those coming up, and you might want to count Roma as a fourth. If we advance in CL and Coppa and take six points in the league I think I'll have a happy Christmas. The season's not a writeoff yet. Garcia's problem was he made it easier to get rid of him than to keep him here. ADL knows the sunk cost fallacy and he knows the value of the fans seeing that the team is taking action when results are unacceptable. Unless there was a financial reason to keep him on, Garcia was headed out that door.
The problems run deeper than just getting rid of Garcia, which was obvious to a few of us that could see it before he was turfed. People argued that Garcia was slowing them down, and that this supposed juggernaut squad should be sweeping teams away with a mighty fist weekly. Last 3 matches vs better has shown what Napoli is this season, a second level squad. Garcia is gone, and the product on the field is the same, if not worse. That is the reality.
It's never nice losing to Juve. Clearly the race for the title is now over for us. We played well, TBT, especially early on, but we couldn't convert chances. Gatti is proving to be a real clutch player for Juve. I wish we had a CB like him. For all the talk about Kim, give me a Gatti any day. Vlahovic was a bit of a threat. I felt we manhandled Chiesa well. They got physical with Osi, but he showed great character and determination. Kvara must improve his finishing. Actually, I would encourage him to dribble past the keeper and then finish. Politano is looking more and more like the new Insigne. Despite the disappointments, he should consider this season a personal best and strive to improve.
Both Juve and Inter approached us tactically scared. They let us go at them while they sat back looking to hit on the counter. Even Real approached us warily. In a tactical sense, teams still respect us even if the fear factor is gone.
Yes and no. Yes, they respect us but it's not like they didnt get forward and dominate position for periods of the game, RM and Juve did this a lot. I would rather turn it around and say they know how to counter us: and that is with a low sitting back line at all times and spread the team vertically, this is so Osimhen and Kvara have no unoccupied space to work with. They also know the Napoli team is not physical enough to get players forwards before their own team return to their defensive positions, when Napoli break play and try transitioning. I don't remember any team not using a low block against us since Liverpool at the Maradona or Ajax in Amsterdam, that didn't exactly go well for them.
Spalletti instituted some discipline on spreading the field vertically by playing back, and with Kim and Lobotka both covering large areas in the back he could get away with it. 1. Without Kim we can't get away with it this year. Natan doesn't have that same skill to shutdown a wide area. 2. It didn't work that well late last year either.
Yes, Kim was very good at winning the ball high. Natan is a WIP. IMO Kvara and Osi have struggled a lot this term. If they both scored more, we'd be doing better. It's harder now because teams know how to cope with them. Acerbi might not be quick, but he was physical enough to bully Osi. Juve were more physical. Kvara gets double and triple teamed all the time now.
So how long are we going to watch Mazzarri flounder with his mentally disabled back 4 ? Just put a back 3 and call it a day.
Disastrous centerbacks. Ostigard and Natan must be scratching their heads if they don't start getting more playing time in those positions. Rui was missed and changed the game for us today
The quality of the teams? Not as relevant as you make it out to be. Sometimes it is tougher to defeat a team like Empoli than the best team in Serie A. If we are to talk about vs strong teams, Garcia definitely impressed more. The 1st half against Lazio we were brilliant, as with RM the whole game. Under Mazarri, so far, we've been played like little kittens by all the big teams, shamed even. As to small teams, we actually defeated Braga in the last game just as unimpressively/unconvincingly as we did it under Garcia. With Cagliari, the fact that Kvara has finally remembered how to hit the goal has saved the coach rather than anything else, no matter how much he likes to talk about how much HE improves things. Garcia has not got a single second of real trust, he has been unapproved from the very beginning, and was brave enough to take over a team literally EVERYBODY was shunning for obvious reasons. In the words of one Juventus fan, last season NOBODY expected anything from the club. We were basically able to play a huge chunk of the season under NO pressure, and by the time we got there we have already achieved an advantage so great that even getting 5 wins only in 11 games since April has not cost us the title. What that means? The team has already lost its shine, the players have been figured out, Spalletti was smart enough to run away before implosion, and noone was foolish enough to take the job. Most probably, ANYONE would have had to go through what Garcia has gone through. I want to thank the man for trying, and I still believe he might have done it with more time, had we not sacked him. Now we will either sack Mazarri soon, or the players will actually become players again, we will praise the coach because suddenly Kvara will score again, and all will be well and lame like humanity so often is. But at least we will be winning again if the latter comes to fruition, and I will take it. Instead of support, Garcia got insane expectations, players with no form, departure of our world-class CB, and some stupid media trouble caused by our marketing department because they were not able to control their emotions and apparently had to post a stupid video because of that, as it so often happens. With this post, I want to thank Garcia for trying to fix a team that has already been broken and figured out since April, and I will not forget that in the big games, though unlucky, we have showed some real brilliance. There was a sign of something great that could have come, had he been given enough time to polish it off and rediscover the team's identity. Interesting fact: Funnily, I have seen this argument posited by many an objective observer who is not a fan of our club. It is that obvious, I believe. But we just don't want to see it, of course, because of the same blindness that has often urged some people here to write primitive thoughts like: "This RM is weak, we have to defeat them...". Even last season, our CHL group was weak, and the strong team in it was not as strong as it usually is. And we got 1 W 1 L out of it anyway. Ajax is weak now, and it was weak last season. Rangers is Rangers. Even last season, we have not impressed against the big teams, or teams that we could consider big last season.
What do you hope to get out of this? Perhaps the team was figured out but that does not mean being placed 16th in the league based on home games. I don't understand your obsession with Garcia. I'm getting to the point where I question whether you even watched the games under Garcia, soberly.
I must admit, Garcia wasn't the right man for the job. The main reason he got it was the relationship with Osi and the lower salary. Not the worst manager, but not the right manager in the end. Let's see if AdL can get Osi to stay a bit longer. Ziely better not go to Inter. Hopefully we can make one more push next season for another title. If we have any ambition this season in the UCL, we better sign another CB and CM this Jan. Also need to find another manager. Mazzarri is a caretaker at best.
Yeah, maybe he was not. We still treated him like shit because we were expecting miracles from a team that has been dormant since April. I do not complain, he is a rich man, I am sure he can live with it. Just stating facts because I find them intriguing.
It is one thing to play an entire team of reserves, that is quite normal, but Napoli reserves are so bad that they aren't even rotational players in any shape or form, except for Elmas who is out. My point is the team Mazzarri put out are not only reserves, but reserves with no game time or starts in the season. In fact they're all just stand ins in case of an injury. This is the recipe for setting your own reserves up for failure. Today, of all the players who started, only Natan can be considered close to the first team. I think resting as many of the first team players as possible was the right decision in this packed xmas program, we just paid the price of not having anyone on the bench capable of rivaling for a starting position, imagine if Lozano was still here, then at last he or Politano would play along with the set reserves. Losing 4-0 to Frosinone is a disgrace regardless
This was fun. I will no longer say anything about the coaches here, as it seems to me everything that happened under Garcia was his fault, whereas now things are happening due to some mysterious forces that we cannot quite identify. It is like the socialism/capitalism argument, where Garcia represents socialism, and Mazzarri capitalism.