‘He struggles against AC Milan’ – Luciano Spaletti on Victor Osimhen after Napoli exit

Head coach of Napoli Luciano Spaletti has revealed that Victor Osimhen struggled on his return to the Champions League after their Tuesday’s exit against AC Milan.

Napoli lost out to their Italian counterpart 2-1 on aggregate having played a 1-1 draw last night at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.

Osimhen missed the first leg tie due to injury, missing up to five games but returned in time for the reverse fixture.

Despite scoring the equalizer, his manager believes the Nigerian struggled against the Rossonerri.

“Some of our players who came back from international duty were struggling, especially Osimhen who was out for 20 days after that injury. Then a few errors and a few injustices,” Spaletti told media.

“Everyone agreed, except those wearing the Milan jersey, that the referee made mistakes in the first leg. There was a penalty today, clear as day, on Lozano where you see from the replays that the ankle moves and he never gets the ball.

“It’s the clearest penalty, you cannot fail to see that. It is not contact, that is a foul, otherwise his ankle would turn like that. It risks a sprain of the ankle. You cannot fail to see that.

“But then people say we complain. The penalty we gave away was naïve, this was also a clear penalty. I also want to compliment my players, as our Champions League campaign was played at a very high level.

“We paid for a few naïve moments, we paid for a lack of experience in dealing with moments of the match.”

Napoli will now turn their attention to the league which is almost a wrap for them. They take on the Old Ladies, Juventus next.