Perspective... Napoli are top of Serie A, came to an intimidating ground for an away team, played an extra game at the weekend before traveling whereas we had seven days off and still won by 3. I think even if we kept 11 on the field they'd have won as I thought they had an extra gear or two in them. Their forward seemed like he wasn't interested at times if you watch it back, tho might be his general play.
It's disappointing to lose, but no great embarrassment against a team of their quality. As someone mentioned above, they've individual players with football brains at a higher level than ours and technique to back it up. We competed tho, which I think a lot here didn't think we'd do (me included) so that's a positive going into the next game. I'm not going to celebrate that as a victory tho like another team did against Madrid.
It's clear we miss Aribo and to a larger extent Bassey, so anyone claiming this is the "same team" as last year needs to remember that. We're not. Poor recruitment hasn't helped.
Morelos made the difference last night, but still staggeringly unfit and that near second yellow could have ended him and any progress he's made. Another red and there would be no turning back for him. I'd argue he's not the only one with fitness issues, that's on Gio.
Will Gio lose more games before Xmas? I fear he will... And I mean in the league too. I genuinely can't see us with him as manager going into 2023, especially if it turns out he had any day in the transfers this summer... Which tbf, I don't think he did. I don't think he would prefer Matondo, Colak, Yilmaz, Davies over Dutch targets. No proof of that tho.