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Napoli: De Laurentiis blames Sarri for Scudetto loss

Napoli: De Laurentiis blames Sarri for Scudetto loss

  • Jordan Russell (@JordRuss96)
During an interview with Il Mattino, Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis appeared to suggest that he holds coach Maurizio Sarri responsible for the club’s failure to secure their first Scudetto since 1990. Here is what he had to say:
 
“I don’t think that the refereeing made much difference. What I do believe is that, at the start of the season, we had to begin training early because we were in the Champions League preliminary round and we just ran out of fuel.
 
“It’s inevitable, unless of course you use all the players that you have in the squad… See, we could’ve had a breather at certain moments of the season, to better prepare the sprint finish. But if we always use the same players…
 
“Basically, if we hadn’t had injuries like the one to Faouzi Ghoulam, we’d never have discovered Mário Rui who, apart from the catastrophic errors against Roma, has been very good. But if you always use the same players…
 
“I don’t think the title race has been falsified. Many things happened on Saturday, as some of the choices made by the Inter coach were also debatable and could well have decided the result.
 
“VAR was not used well or it wasn’t used at all, but there are also games before that which could’ve given us a bigger margin in the table. I don’t want VAR to be accused of being a bad thing, because I am and remain a supporter of it.
 
“What I do think is that we need decisions in the booth made not by other referees, but perhaps former coaches.”