Osimhen not at his best against Fiorentina -Spalletti

Napoli manager, Luciano Spalletti, has said that his club’s record signing, Victor Osimhen, was not in great shape despite finding the back of the net in the 3-2 Serie A defeat against Fiorentina on Sunday.

For the first time this season and only the second in his Napoli career, Osimhen was on target and provided an assist in a match, but Spalletti wasn’t pleased with the overall display of the Nigeria international.

The Partenopei were dealt a major blow in their quest to win Scudetto as the visiting side scored through Nicolas Gonzalez, Jonathan Ikone, and Arthur Cabral to win the battle at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.

Despite a late rally that saw Napoli score through Dries Mertens and Nigeria’s Osimhen, Fiorentina stayed tight at the back to inflict on Napoli their sixth defeat of the season.

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“Fiorentina play man against man, Milenkovic pushes far up to chase his man and leaves these spaces we could’ve made more of. If you don’t have the quality to dribble your way out of trouble, then you end up with long balls,” Spalletti told DAZN as quoted by Football Italia.

“Osimhen wasn’t in the best shape today, as he skipped a couple of training sessions. He did well, but could’ve done better in these physical duels with Igor.”

The 63-year-old Italian manager has further described Napoli’s result as a “costly defeat”.

“This is a very costly defeat and in certain ways was undeserved. Fiorentina played their game and earned the win, but we started strong, then tried to play too long and allowed them to take control of midfield.

“When we conceded the second goal, it all became far more difficult. We have to take some of the blame for what happened, but it’s so disappointing because the fans, the attitude of the whole team throughout the week was the right one.”

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On losing five league matches at home, Spalletti said: “They are all to be taken individually, I don’t see any recurring problem we can work on or blame.

“Of course, things change, because clearly now it’s all more difficult. We have no choice other than to be professional, try to win the next game, and see what happens. It is no longer in our hands.”

Osimhen’s goal was his 12th of the top-flight campaign from 21 appearances.