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Gattuso ‘can’t buy determination at supermarket’

Gennaro Gattuso was frustrated by Napoli falling apart against Verona and transforming in the second half. ‘You can’t just go to the supermarket and ask for €10 of determination.’

The Partenopei had the perfect start with Chucky Lozano scoring within nine seconds, the quickest in the club’s Serie A history and third of all time, but Federico Dimarco, Antonin Barak, and Mattia Zaccagni turned it around for a 3-1 Verona victory.

read also:Gattuso: ‘Napoli made it look easy’ with 6-0 win over Fiorentina

It’s another heavy psychological blow just days after losing the Supercoppa 2-0 to Juventus.

“I make the decisions, so when we don’t win, it’s my responsibility. It’s disappointing because we had the right game-plan, we made it difficult for them, created four or five scoring opportunities in the first half and could’ve killed the game,” Gattuso told Sky Sport Italia.

“The regret is that, we could’ve done so much and kept wasting it. We were always four against four and didn’t make the right passes. We know this Verona side loves to play physical football, so we started to do what they wanted.

“All teams have ups and downs this season, we need to clear our minds. I expect what we prepare during the week. We played the first half exactly the way we wanted to, but we did everything wrong in the second half.

“We made the wrong choices. It’s not easy, you can’t just go to the supermarket and ask for €10 of determination. It can’t be brought out of the players just by saying it. It’s about the interpretation of the game, we had one in the first half and a totally different attitude after the break.”

Antonin Barak’s goal was scored at the near post with an angled drive after Tiemoue Bakayoko’s pass was intercepted.

“Look at the second goal, we lose the ball after we have four against four because we decide to turn backward and misplace the pass. That sparks the counter and we concede. We changed our usual style today, we didn’t make the vertical passes. We never tried to pass it around, and the few times we did, we conceded three goals,” continued Gattuso.

“It’s not about systems at the moment, it’s how you cover the pitch, how you concede goals. Verona scored three goals with five shots, we had one with seven or eight. We give the opponents gifts this season and we do it a lot.”

Gattuso was asked if this latest defeat scales down the Napoli ambitions for this season.

“Our ambition is to get back into the Champions League, but we cannot put in performances like this. We take the lead, then fall apart at the first sign of difficulty, it’s going to be tough to continue like that. I can’t do it on my own, we all need to analyse what is happening and whittle down the errors.”

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