There are numbers to make the Napoli crisis even more evident. A crisis that arises from afar and cannot have repercussions on the current moment. The Gattuso era began in the worst way, of the four games with him on the bench, Napoli lost three, winning one moreover in extremis in Reggio Emilia, against Sassuolo. Too little for a team that had started for other goals and now finds itself in a ranking position that is equivalent to nothing. And next Sunday at San Paolo there will be Juventus with all its champions to keep at bay. In short, the black period knows no breaks.
WORST START - A mediocre away performance, away from Napoli, hadn't had it since the 2011-12 season, when he added 13 points in 10 external games, which are the same points he put together in this championship in the same number of away matches . Continuity in results is the aspect that is penalizing the team most. Yesterday evening, there were signs of recovery, marred only by Davide Ospina's mistake, when Napoli had the game in hand and Lazio seemed to be on the ropes. Too little, however, to absolve players and coach. Gattuso was guilty, perhaps, of resorting to substitutions too late: what was the point of inserting Llorente and Elmas only in the final minutes, when Ospina had already ruined the evening? Yet it seemed that Callejon was not in the evening from the first minutes, just to mention one of the worst. When Napoli deployed the double striker with Milik and Llorente, the defense of Lazio closed in a hedgehog and conceded nothing.
THE NEWS - Something will change or, at least, hopefully change with the arrival of Diego Demme and Stanislav Lobotka. The two should allow Gattuso to have more solutions in midfield and, above all, to have a median in front of the defense capable of giving a greater balance to the game. Probably, the two could make their debut on Tuesday afternoon, against Perugia, in the match of the Italian Cup, valid for the passage to the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, Fernando Llorente could end up on loan to Aston Villa. The two companies agree, now it's up to the Spanish player to decide.