Napoli assistant manager Marco Landucci said Juventus deserved their victory after admitting his side produced a poor second-half display, while confirming further injury problems for Rasmus Hojlund, Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, Kevin De Bruyne, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Matias Olivera.
Max Allegri completed his two-match touchline ban by watching from the stands at a stadium where he spent 10 years across two spells with Juventus. Landucci took charge from the bench for the match.
Napoli were forced into late changes before kick-off after Hojlund and goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic were affected by a virus. Stanislav Lobotka, Benoit Badiashile, Leonardo Spinazzola, David Neres, Alisson Santos, Costantino Favasuli and Alessandro Buongiorno were already unavailable.
The game was closely contested and offered few clear chances before moments of individual quality changed it. Kerim Alajbegovic and Jeremie Boga scored spectacular goals from outside the penalty area, while Luca Marianucci was sent off after receiving a second yellow card.
“Quite simply, we had a bad second half and Juve deserved to win. When you lose, you have to just stay quiet and accept it,” Landucci told DAZN Italia.
“We had some absences, but this isn’t an excuse, we should’ve done better after the break. I thought it was a good first half, Lucca was denied by a great Vicario save, but that wasn’t enough.”
The result leaves Napoli eighth in the table on 14 points, level with Bologna and nine points behind Como in the Champions League places. At the same stage last season, Napoli were top of the table on their own after 10 rounds and had eight more points than they do now.
“We are not worried, but we are very disappointed, because we cared about this match,” added Landucci. “The truth is that’s how the game went, we need to shut up and prepare for Wednesday. We have many injuries, as many teams do with this fixture list, it is somewhat inevitable and you have to keep going.”
Asked whether Napoli’s defenders had been instructed to retreat during the two goals, Landucci rejected the suggestion.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Those were great finishes, but we should not have allowed them to get into that space. We back-tracked too much, this is the difference between conceding and not conceding, and it’s not the first time. If you push up and defend well, you’re not going to concede that.
“We all could’ve done better in the second half. It seems a clear and logical analysis to me. Juventus did better than us and deserved to win.”
De Bruyne and Di Lorenzo were both replaced at half-time, while Olivera appeared distressed as he left the pitch shortly after Marianucci’s dismissal.
“Clearly, they could not continue,” Landucci said. “De Bruyne had a problem with his ankle, Giovanni Di Lorenzo I’m not sure, but he could not continue either. Even with that, we need to do better.”
Landucci confirmed he had spoken to Allegri in the dressing room.
“Obviously, he wasn’t happy, would you have been happy? He just said we should’ve done better in the second half, we paid a heavy price for errors, that’s it.”
