Gattuso: 'Napoli hit rock bottom'

By Football Italia staff

Gennaro Gattuso apologised to Napoli fans for an “embarrassing” 2-0 home defeat to Fiorentina. “We hit rock bottom and need to find out what is happening.”

Incredibly, Gattuso is the first coach to lose four of his first five Serie A games on the Partenopei bench since Zdenek Zeman in 2000.

His only victory was a stoppage-time turnaround at Sassuolo and none of their performances have been remotely convincing, which makes the fact they will be against Juventus next week all the more concerning.

Napoli have lost their last four Serie A home fixtures and host Juventus next week. They are without a win here since beating Verona 2-0 on October 19, so firing Carlo Ancelotti seems to have made no improvement.

“We must first and foremost apologise to the fans and the whole city, because the performance was embarrassing,” Gattuso told DAZN.

“In the past we had decent performances, but here other than the first 20-25 minutes, there was a lot that needed work.

“We can’t look for alibis, we have hit rock bottom here and need to find out what is happening. It looks as if we just met this morning, put the jerseys on and went on to the pitch. There is no organisation or unity, we are all at sea.

“It’s strange, because the team trains hard during the week and does well, then we get out there on match day and don’t do anything. We’re sluggish, we let the opposition through, we create little. Nothing worked this evening and it’s only right we take responsibility for that.

“I can’t explain it, as I felt the team would put in a great performance tonight and I was let down. The team has no soul. We thought that we were recovering from the earlier situation, but evidently we’re still sick.”

Gattuso scrapped Ancelotti’s 4-4-2 and moved back to a 4-3-3, but this team doesn’t resemble the Sarriball Napoli either.

“We need to vary our attacks, because we are too predictable. When Lorenzo Insigne and Jose Callejon did try to seek other combinations, they left Arek Milik isolated. They played those moves for many years under Maurizio Sarri, so everyone knows those runs and passes now.

“We’ve got to stick together, listen to what the players say and work out how we can get out of this situation. I thought the team would be more alive and kicking, but instead it’s a worse performance than the one with Parma. It’s more than just one step back.”

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