Luciano Spalletti slammed his side’s second-half performance at the Stadio Artemio Franchi despite Napoli’s pulsating 2-1 away victory over Fiorentina. Hirving Lozano and Amir Rrahmani orchestrated the visitors’ stunning comeback to give the Partenopei a sensation seventh Serie A win in as many games this term.
Lucas Martinez-Quarta broke the deadlock in the 28th minute to give Fiorentina the lead. However, La Viola‘s celebrations were short-lived as Victor Osimhen won a penalty for the traveling side just nine minutes later. Though Bartlomiej Dragowski thwarted Lorenzo Insigne’s spot-kick attempt, Lozano hammered the ball home at the second time of asking to draw Napoli level in the 39th minute.
It took Spalletti’s team just five minutes into the second half to complete the turnaround through Rrahmani. The Kosovan defender rose above his marker to meet Piotr Zielinski’s set-piece delivery and head the ball past Dragowski. Little did Napoli know that would be the final result, even though both sides had a few decent opportunities to trouble the scoreline in the remaining 40 minutes of play.
Spalletti made all five substitutions in the second half as part of his efforts to hurt Fiorentina on the counters, but his side struggled to exploit spaces left by their hosts’ high press. The fact that his players often lacked the final ball to put daylight between the teams left the ex-Inter and Roma manager fuming.
“We played below our capabilities because in the second half we never gave Dries Mertens or Andrea Petagna decent service. We controlled the second half and I replaced Anguissa because he prefers to play in a three-man midfield, while we struggled on the long ball to Dusan Vlahovic,” he said, as cited by CalcioNapoli24.
“The midfield didn’t manage to help the defense much, so Rrahmani and Kalidou Koulibaly often had to sort it out themselves. Riccardo Sottil caused us a lot of problems when he came on, I was impressed by his pace, but at the same time we could’ve scored another for 3-1.“