Spalletti: ‘Difficult To Say No If Manchester United Offer €100m For Osimhen’

Luciano Spalletti criticised Hirving Lozano and Kvicha Kvaratskhelia after the 0-0 draw with Fiorentina, while confirming Napoli would find it ‘difficult to say no’ if Manchester United offered €100m for Victor Osimhen.

The Partenopei were held to a stalemate at the Stadio Franchi, with Hirving Lozano missing a free header set up by Kvicha Kvaratskhelia and Pierluigi Gollini’s splendid save on Giacomo Raspadori.

It means after three rounds not a single team in Serie A has a 100 per cent record, something that hadn’t happened in Serie A since 2012-13.

Napoli are nonetheless joint top on seven points with Milan, Lazio, Torino and Roma.

He was involved in an altercation with Fiorentina fans who were insulting him from behind the bench and you can read more on that here.

“Fiorentina play man for man and we did not manage to find a free man, losing various duels and failing to make the right passing moves. There were too many soft passes backwards,” Spalletti told DAZN.

“Kvaratskhelia played below his capabilities, he got too pig-headed in keeping the ball and struggled in the tackles. But having said that, the chance Lozano missed on his cross, you can’t get that wrong…”

Raspadori came off the bench for his Napoli debut and had the best scoring opportunity, forcing a low save from Gollini.

“He came on well, created the movement that allowed us to find him between the lines. He can protect the ball and turn in small spaces.”

Inevitably, the conversation moved to the on-going reports Manchester United could let Cristiano Ronaldo leave on loan to Napoli, if they were to spend €100m on Victor Osimhen.

Once again, Spalletti did nothing to deny the possibility or his interest in perhaps seeing it come to fruition.

“I don’t have time to think about these things, we have a game every few days. Is the club thinking about it? The club thinks of any situation that is of interest to our players.

“I say that if a club offers you €100m, it is not easy to say no. Since I arrived here, all the players have been on the market for the right price.”

Napoli have already sold or released numerous star names this summer, including Lorenzo Insigne, Dries Mertens, Kalidou Koulibaly, David Ospina and Andrea Petagna.

“Yes but we replaced them all with players up to the task, such as Ndombele, Simeone, Raspadori and Kvaratskhelia. There is a lot of work to be done to rediscover the character of those who left, from their prestige to their self-confidence on the pitch. “We made some precise moves to bring in the same characteristics and players who are more motivated to make their mark.”