Carlo Ancelotti was pleased with the way his Napoli players were able to grind out what turned out to be a hard-fought win over Brescia despite dominating the opening exchanges on Sunday.
“We were able to dig in after having dominated for over an hour,” said the Azzurri boss after full time. “We went from nearly making it 3-0 to conceding a goal and suffering several injuries. The positive side is that we did well to come through the tricky period. Sometimes you do have to dig in in these games and we did well to bring home the win.”
Ancelotti stressed that his side were the better team at the San Paolo, despite Brescia forcing a nervy climax.
“I don’t have much to say about the performance – I think we were clearly the dominant side for the whole of the first half,” he said. “The only negative is that we should have put it to bed with a third goal in the second half, because we did create the chances. We’re still working towards peak fitness: not all of the players are there yet, but we’ll get there.”
Both Nikola Maksimovic and Kostas Manolas were forced off with injury during the game, but Ancelotti is confident that he has the strength in depth to cope.
“It’s not an easy time but we have options,” he said. “I think Manolas will be OK but we don’t know yet – we’ll have to wait and see in training. Fernando [Llorente] looked tired to me after a high-intensity performance, so I decided to put on [Elif] Elmas to give us more cover in midfield, partly in response to the injuries in defence.”
(Photo Getty Images)
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Source: legaseriea.it