Arsenal pass to Maradona after a match dominated from top to bottom. Third consecutive defeat for the Neapolitans who now have to redeem themselves before the break. And the coach from Livorno…
Ninety minutes of defense, first orderly trying to restart and then passive, just to contain. Napoli’s wall against Maradona only collapsed in the 70th minute, when Arsenal found the way to overcome the blue barrier and beat Milinkovic Savic with a powerful and precise left foot from Odegaard. Debut with defeat in the Champions League for Allegri’s team, too inferior in quality and organization compared to the Premier League champions and European vice-champions.
The knockout is not, however, the most difficult thing to digest of an evening in which Maradona also returned to challenge president De Laurentiis. If it was predictable, in fact, that Arsenal would express their superiority spread across all areas of the pitch, it was reasonable to expect a middle ground between Inter’s bold approach at the Bernabeu and the 1960s bolt of recovery from Allegri’s men.
Instead, what the enemies of the Tuscan coach predicted happened and which will now occupy the debate for days. Is Allegri’s football up to the times and up to Europe? And the streak of three consecutive defeats, which joins the defeats against Como and Inter to the one against i Gunnersis it the product of an unlucky start to the season in scheduling commitments or the indicator of an inconvenience that De Laurentiis has a duty to intervene in?
The indictment is in the numbers of the match: 26 shots conceded to the English, half of which in a second half in which the Neapolitans practically did not exist in the opponent’s half of the pitch, did not create the prerequisite of danger (0.08 expected goals against Arsenal’s 2.18) and progressively lowered a block that already started low, giving up any restart. Deadbolt and that’s it, or bus in front of the penalty area. In these conditions, it is impossible to imagine getting away with it until the end and, in fact, Arsenal’s goal arrived.
In defense there are the precariousness of a strong team but which at the moment also has several absent due to injury, joined by Alisson Santos who – in Allegri’s words – will be missing for a while. The fans blame De Laurentiis for a non-existent market, financial tears and blood after the investments of Conte’s two-year period. Allegri knew what risks he ran by accepting the ADL’s court and he also knows that he has no room for recrimination for the summer as a spectator at the negotiating table. Not all the opponents will be called Arsenal, but already against Bologna and Fiorentina Max needs to win to experience a (maxi) break without ghosts in his head, also thinking back to the poor show offered on the first European night at Maradona of his Neapolitan adventure.
