ADL: Napoli deserve credit

By Football Italia staff

Aurelio De Laurentiis believes Napoli deserve credit for their season as ‘Juventus are in much more debt than us.’

Napoli’s debut campaign under Carlo Ancelotti has seen them finish second in Serie A, although they were knocked out of the Champions League group stage and lost to Arsenal in the Europa League quarter-finals.

“I publicly thank Ancelotti and the lads because they did well,” De Laurentiis told TV Luna during his club’s annual end-of-season dinner.

“It wasn’t easy for us to switch from Sarri’s game to that of the new Coach. After three years with Maurizio, who’s a great Coach, there’s the need to learn a different way of playing so credit must be given to Ancelotti, who’s also used little-used players and new signings.

“You can drop points, but our advantage on our rivals says a lot and we can’t blame ourselves for anything.

“Juve are top, but it’ll always be difficult to fight those who are in much more debt than us.

“I want to emphasise that we don’t even have €1 of debt with the banks and we’ve always respected Financial Fair Play.

“We’ve always obliged with Coaches who wanted to discuss transfers. Sarri never did, so it was impossible for us.

“Carlo deals with the matter every day, while respecting the club’s budget. He worked at Real Madrid, a team who operate at four or five times the level we do.”

The Partenopei President was then asked about Lorenzo Insigne’s future...

“For Neapolitans, this territory is always uncomfortable, remember Quagliarella? He came from Udinese with great desire, but then he was forced to run away and only after that did we learn the mystery about him.

“This club is seated in an extraordinary territory, potentially the richest in Italy, but it’s scornful in that it gives you nothing and takes things away from you.

“The limit of us Neapolitans is that after the finger, we take the whole arm.

“Quagliarella proved to be a good player, where he didn’t feel the weight of this conditioning and which he didn’t talk about to anyone.”

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