Juventus manager Thiago Motta was disappointed with his side’s first Serie A loss of the season at leaders Napoli on Saturday and pointed to the amount of preparation time the hosts have for matches as they are not playing in Europe this term.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli staged a second-half comeback to win 2-1 at home thanks to goals from Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa and Romelu Lukaku and lead the table with 53 points, six above Inter Milan who have two games in hand. Juve are fifth on 37 points.
“I’m disappointed with the defeat. We had a good first half, causing our opponents a lot of problems, a side that is not top of the table as a fluke because they have a great coach and had the opportunity to prepare all week for this,” Motta told DAZN.
“However, we did not have that luxury and it showed, because all the good work we did in the first half, we struggled to replicate in the second and that is why we were unable to win.”
Juve dominated the opening period and were ahead at the break thanks to a debut goal from France forward Randal Kolo Muani, who has just joined on loan from Paris St Germain, but Napoli then took control and piled on the pressure.
“We reacted well in many other situations, we just didn’t do it today. Juve have not won here since 2019, it is important to point that out. It is the sixth consecutive defeat for the club here so evidently that is a tough place for us,” he said.
Motta added that Juventus made several minor mistakes that ultimately led to their defeat.
“The idea was to press and defend well but we were unable to do that because our quality was lacking and when we started giving the ball away Napoli tended to win the duels and that gave them an advantage.”
