Picking up only a point on the weekend against Atalanta left Napoli still stranded in eight place with 16 points which is not actually comforting enough for a potential Scudetto candidate. However, they have a chance to improve things this midweek when they’ll be playing against Juventus in the re-arranged tie, which previously got delayed due to flood problem.
A victory is the target that Partenopei players are aiming, including Marek Hamsik, who hoped that his teammates will once again gets motivated against a big team such as Juventus.
Hamsik acknowledged that if they want to preserve their Scudetto ambitions, making Juventus dropping points is pretty important for Walter Mazzarri’s team as it could get them closer with the Bainconeri. Although admitting it won’t be easy to stop Juve, who are in a good form at the moment, but the Slovakian international midfielder is pretty optimistic about his team’s chances especially since their recent success in defeating the likes of Ac Milan, Inter Milan and Manchester City.
“We’ll need to be at our best to beat Juventus – and not just myself, Ezequiel Lavezzi or Edinson Cavani. We need a perfect team performance, one of those which we have put on in the past. And we hardly ever get it wrong against the big clubs. We are Napoli and we can’t let Juventus run away from us. If they take the advantage then it will be complicated to catch them. We need to beat them and, on certain nights, Napoli don’t disappoint,” Hamsik stated.
Being heralded as one of the Scudetto favorites from the start of season, Napoli earned plenty admiration earlier on when they managed to defeat big teams such as the Milanese duo. However, their inconsistent performances against lower sides, pretty much held their progress in constantly following the top three teams in the league currently.
The Partenopei’s focus in the Champions League have pretty much been the main source of their inconsistent performance as Mazzarri’s team seems to have a problem in picking up results with constant tight schedule. Obviously the match against Juventus at San Paolo will once again be the ultimate task for them, proving how they’re always ready when the big guns arrives at their hostile and wonderful San Paolo atmosphere.
photo credit: csk_drq
