Napoli H Post Match Thread 2-2

[UniFox21]

Napoli are a bloody good side, Osimhen cost them the best part of €70-€80mill the other year. They're no slouches. 

We gave a good showing of ourselves, poor defensively at times but some beautiful attacking play. 

 

Officiating however was awful. 

 

[Raj]

34 minutes ago, SemperEadem said:

I bet they got caught by surprise Napoli positioned themselves at the front of the stand not the back.

Normally segregate well enough with the olde tarpaulin and coppers- they should have known what to expect.

 

[NasPb]

We deserved to win without a doubt. If the circumstances were normal we'd win. Usually we wouldn't have to take out Evans for injury concerns, and usually, the ref is much better than that. Regardless Rodgers didn't make the right substitutions. This was a game for hamza. With this being said it was not even our top squad the one we had played. Too much tinkering bad refering and a lack of organization defensively cost us. But at top form we'll defo beat them in their stadium. Poor defensively they are. And with a better referee too. Also worth mentioning that given our injuries and lack od of squad cohesion as such it was much more difficult for us. I ain't really worried. We'll top this group if we're fit. 

Edited 17 September 2021 by NasPb

[Lineker's Lugs]

19 minutes ago, NasPb said:

We deserved to win without a doubt. If the circumstances were normal we'd win. Usually we wouldn't have to take out Evans for injury concerns, and usually, the ref is much better than that. Regardless Rodgers didn't make the right substitutions. This was a game for hamza. With this being said it was not even our top squad the one we had played. Too much tinkering bad refering and a lack of organization defensively cost us. But at top form we'll defo beat them in their stadium. Poor defensively they are. And with a better referee too. Also worth mentioning that given our injuries and lack od of squad cohesion as such it was much more difficult for us. I ain't really worried. We'll top this group if we're fit. 

There are maybe 4 words in this I agree with. But no sentences.

[StanSP]

Our goals were class. Says a lot when we are disappointed to come away with a draw at home to Napoli, a team that are favourites to win the whole competition. Also disappointing to be 2 up in the 2nd half and still not win. 

 

Thought Soumare was one of our better players. Was wondering why he came off but can understand if he was knackered. Maybe needs to pass the ball quicker but he's still settling in to the side. 

 

Ref was horrendous. No complaints about the red for Ndidi but his first yellow was unbelievable. Got the ball in a 50/50 and totally bought Anguissa's reaction to then give a yellow to Ndidi. Rubbish decision. Gave a lot of free kicks for them but not the same for us - did Koulibaly get the ball for that slide on Kelechi?? 

 

Anyway, toughest game of the group done with for now and we should be aiming for 12 points against the other 2 before we play Napoli again.

 

[CosbehFox]

Anguissa was a right tool - diving all game 

[Pliskin]

7 hours ago, enmac said:

Osihnem could have scored a couple in the 1st half, when Evans was playing. That player was the difference. If he wasn't playing our defence would have been relatively untroubled. 

Different being Evans was standing him up and forcing him back into positions where taking shots on would be rushed or tight so there wasn’t a clear effort on goal. Cags can get a bit last ditch sometimes and is quite predictable in sending the player down the line and diving in, Osihnem got wise to that and was able to create space easier for himself. 
 

Granted it wasn’t the only issues but I think it was that fine margin that ultimately lost us the maximum points.  

[lcfcell]

I’m so confused about us at the moment. 2-2 against Napoli who are very good is probably a decent point but being 2-0 is disappointing. This season so far however why can’t we seem to pass the ball? is so frustrating how poor we are at it at times. It’s almost as if the opposition just wait they’ll get it back within seconds

[st albans fox]

8 hours ago, foxfan92 said:

It was a tug, and therefore we can't argue too much with the second yellow, except for the fact that every single decision the ref seemed to make seemed to be in Napoli's favour. 

 

Every time a Napoli player fell to the floor it was a free kick to them, any time we seemed to have a player bundled to the ground, he waved play on. 

 

I'm certain he got some of those right, but on the balance of play, it didn't look at all like the unbiased referring that it should have been.

It just seemed to be what you’d expect away from home 

 

if we had that refereeing in naples then I would have no complaints- it’s just how it is when you’re away in Europe. But we shouldn’t suffer from it at our place.  We should be getting pretty much all the 50/50’s in our favour.  Whether that’s right or wrong is a different conversation but it’s usually how it is. 
 

maybe we suffered from ‘small team syndrome’ in the refs opinion …. 

[Phil Bowman]

9 hours ago, Flappit said:

We've turned onto a ponderous, slow and negative team in recent months that is playing Rogers' brand of possession ball, which means we pass the ball around between defenders until we lose it. I've seen no sign that we can break out of this style recently and it's depressing. I hope it improves soon and yet I see little reason to hold onto that hope.

Well if you didn’t see any sign of it last night, you need to look harder! There were several fast, flowing passing moves that got us the length of the pitch at high speed and made us look seriously good.

[Dames]

8 minutes ago, Phil Bowman said:

Well if you didn’t see any sign of it last night, you need to look harder! There were several fast, flowing passing moves that got us the length of the pitch at high speed and made us look seriously good.

Few and far between though. We are currently the team with the lowest attempts on goal in the League which doesnt bode well considering we’ve played, Norwich, West Ham and Wolves in 3 out of 4 of the games.

 

We looked good in spells last night but i’m starting to fear that the FA Cup win was the peak and this season we are going to come crashing down hard. The signs are there, defensively we are shaky and we rarely attack. 

[AllGoneTitsSchlupp]

i didn’t catch one of those t shirts they shoot out at half time. so terrible night all round really 

[Deeg67]

Quite an entertaining match, though tbf we weren't very good.  And the ref was awful, truly execrable.

 

Some quite puzzling subs, too.  

[Adrian]

54 minutes ago, lcfcell said:

I’m so confused about us at the moment. 2-2 against Napoli who are very good is probably a decent point but being 2-0 is disappointing. This season so far however why can’t we seem to pass the ball? is so frustrating how poor we are at it at times. It’s almost as if the opposition just wait they’ll get it back within seconds

I agree with this..BR hasn't got us ticking really this season. Moments of quality but overall product is not great

[NasPb]

1 hour ago, Lineker's Lugs said:

There are maybe 4 words in this I agree with. But no sentences.

wrote it quickly mate haha 

[Deeg67]

1 hour ago, StanSP said:

Our goals were class. Says a lot when we are disappointed to come away with a draw at home to Napoli, a team that are favourites to win the whole competition. Also disappointing to be 2 up in the 2nd half and still not win. 

 

Thought Soumare was one of our better players. Was wondering why he came off but can understand if he was knackered. Maybe needs to pass the ball quicker but he's still settling in to the side. 

 

Ref was horrendous. No complaints about the red for Ndidi but his first yellow was unbelievable. Got the ball in a 50/50 and totally bought Anguissa's reaction to then give a yellow to Ndidi. Rubbish decision. Gave a lot of free kicks for them but not the same for us - did Koulibaly get the ball for that slide on Kelechi?? 

 

Anyway, toughest game of the group done with for now and we should be aiming for 12 points against the other 2 before we play Napoli again.

 

Soumare was certainly one of our better players in the second half, and he did not look remotely happy to come off.

[StriderHiryu]

After sleeping on it, though disappointed with giving up a 2 goal lead, I think there's a lot of positives to take from the game.

 

- This was the first time we started Daka and Soumare in a competitive game and it was against top quality opposition. Both looked good.

- Vestergaard hasn't been with us long and though he did have a bad time, Osimhen had a blinder of a game. His passing was good.

- Bertrand hasn't been with us long either and he played too. Was decent in the game.

- Perez scored and had good moments.

- Barnes scored with real aplomb.

- Nacho did a lot of good work throughout the game.

 

Obviously there are a lot of negatives too, but we rotated our squad quite heavily and still played well in spells. Napoli played the strongest team they had available and had to fight hard to get something from the game. Of the two teams, they were the ones that looked the more likely competition winners, but against Villareal pre-season and now against Napoli we've shown we are a serious threat.

 

Overall this season we've still not really clicked, which is the bigger concern. But it's been far from a disaster. 

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, lcfcell said:

I’m so confused about us at the moment. 2-2 against Napoli who are very good is probably a decent point but being 2-0 is disappointing. This season so far however why can’t we seem to pass the ball? is so frustrating how poor we are at it at times. It’s almost as if the opposition just wait they’ll get it back within seconds

That's got to baffle Rodgers too! There's not so much you can do as a coach when that happens though. Good example was shortly after Tielemans came on he played a disastrous cross field ball that ended up with Soyuncu getting booked. If your best player is making passes like that, what can you do?

 

It's a common theme with our team though. If we have one of those days where passing is poor it's not often we get something from the game. We're not the only team that has those sort of problems though, in fact I've seen Napoli themselves have games like that too.

[Reg Vardy]

We played the champions and ECL finalists on Saturday, A team who are unbeaten and beat Juvenile at the weekend last night. 

We ran both incredibly close….why is it always we aren’t clicking when it is as much about the quality of the opponent we are facing….they are top top teams full of quality

Finally as I looked around the ground last night, full, flags flying,fireworks, real passion from the crowd, we have come a long long way from Rotherham and Yeovil….

[MrsJohnMurphy]

9 hours ago, turlo said:

with the lines. must've been a different frame from the replays they were showing on BT to start with 

 

Where is the ball? Looks like it's already at Daka feet after Youri has touched it

[Les-TA-Jon]

2 minutes ago, MrsJohnMurphy said:

Where is the ball? Looks like it's already at Daka feet after Youri has touched it

The ball is on Youri's right foot in that pic

[Stevosevic]

Just for a bit of perspective. Their striker cost 70m. He could do that against any side. 

[Number 6]

Couple of things from me:

 

 - Napoli are a good side. I think we knew this was going to be a tough group and today proved that. So although it feels like 2 points dropped we have to recognise the level of opposition we were playing against.

 - We're still recovering from the injury hangover: players making their way back to full fitness etc. The Fofana injury absolutely knocked us for six, we have an inconsistent back line and it is being changed mid-game - this only makes things more difficult to manage. I think we should get stronger as the season goes on.

 - Referee was awful, I don't think anything that would have severely changed the game but just dishing out cards for fun. Very poor.

 - Performances have probably been fairly poor in 4/5 games this season. And yet we're W2 D1 L2, we've found ways to get results which is a good knack to have.

Edited 17 September 2021 by Number 6

[GlennyFox55]

They were much better than us and probably should of won it so a draw is a good result.

 

Just how it happened that hurts and the fact it makes winning the group very difficult. 

[Grebfromgrebland]

I don't think this group win be as easy as people think. What is clear is that we lack the experience of European football and can't handle it when the opposing team start with the dark arts.

 

We were lucky not to lose this by a few goals yesterday but a real worry is how nervous we were on the ball and without the ball we just couldn't handle their press and wouldn't change our style. 

 

Can anyone remember the last time we dominated a game?