Serie A Preview: Napoli

After three fantastic seasons under Maurizio Sarri, Napoli changed their head coach this summer with the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti. The serial winner arrives in Naples with one objective; win the Serie A title which eluded Sarri. Sarris Napoli mesmerized fans with their playing style and broke their points record twice, but the all-conquering back-to-back-to-back-to-back double winners Juventus stopped Sarri from winning a trophy. Ancelottis task has therefore been set. He needs to overhaul Juventus to win Napolis first Serie A title, the Scudetto, in almost 30 years.

In this preview, I look at Napolis transfer activity and our tactical analysis looks at how Napoli might play.

Coach

Carlo Ancelotti is one of the most successful coaches in European football. Hes won league titles in England, Italy, Germany and France as well as the Champions League with AC Milan (twice) and Real Madrid. He also holds a Serie A title with Milan from 2004. With such a proven winner in charge Napoli hope they can finally win the Scudetto again. The worry is that Napolis success has been built on a very specific style of play and with Ancelotti being more man-manager than tactical mastermind I fear his players might not be as good as Sarri has made them look. Time will tell, but Ancelotti is normally very good at handling a first season after a very tactically demanding coach; note his first season at Bayern and his first in Madrid after Guardiola and Mourinho respectively.

Transfers

Napolis sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli have had a quiet yet eventful transfer window. The main departure is, of course, Jorginho but the €57m fee has largely paid for the reinforcements to the squad. Pepe Reina has also left after a very good spell at San Paolo as has stalwart Christian Maggio.

Fabian Ruiz is the most expensive acquisition with Napoli paying €30m for the Spanish midfielder. The other big signing is Italian winger Simone Verdi who joins from Bologna for €25m. He will provide strong competition for Jose Callejon on the right. To replace Reina, as well as departing backup goalkeepers Rafael and Luigi Sepe, Giuntoli opted for highly-talented Udinese goalkeeper Alex Meret for €22m and another Udinese goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis at a tenth of Merets fee. With Meret immediately injured though, Karnezis will start the season in goal. Ajax German winger Amin Younes has joined on a free transfer and the unproven Brazilian striker Vinicius Morais comes from the Portuguese club Real SC.

Tactical Analysis: How will Napoli play?

With Sarri it was easy to anticipate how Napoli would play. They never changed their style regardless of their opponent or the stage. They kept playing their beautiful short-passing football out of their 4-3-3 while pressing relentlessly out of possession. With Ancelotti, however, its going to be tougher to predict. He is very adaptable and has no qualms about playing low and countering or taking the game to the opponent. Usually, he adapts to the side he takes over and therefore acts like footballs greatest asset-manager. He just tweaks a few things, works his man-management magic and tries to let things flow. It has often worked since hes managed clubs with superb players, but it has also usually gotten worse after a season or two.

The 4-3-3 formation is set to remain as Ancelotti has kept the shape for his friendlies in charge. As you see in the image below, the full-backs are very attacking down the flanks while the midfield three and front-three is very narrow.

Napolis preference to keep the ball along the ground seems set to continue with Ancelotti, but there are worries that Sarris meticulous automatisms have been lost already. This will make Napoli more vulnerable as their possession play, especially in the 5-0 friendly defeat to Liverpool, hasnt impressed. Below we see their starting positions. Marek Hamsik has been deployed as Jorginhos replacement in defensive midfield. But with both full-backs bombing on like this it creates huge spaces for the opponent to counter-attack. Napoli repeatedly lost the ball against Liverpool and faced dangerous turnovers. Its barely been a month, but Napoli already seem to miss Sarris meticulousness.

Heres another example of how the Napoli players seem to have forgotten some of Sarris principles. Albiol pla