Striker Victor Osimhen scored a second-half brace as Napoli fought back to earn a 2-2 draw at Leicester City in a pulsating Europa League Group C clash.
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Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti was full of praise for attacker Victor Osimhen, who helped the Serie A giants pull off a stunning comeback to record a 2-2 draw in their Europa League group stage opener against Leicester City. Osimhen looped the ball over Kasper Schmeichel to help Napoli score their opener, having been 2-1 down with 21 minutes to play. The attacker further followed it up by nodding a corner from Matteo Politano into the far corner to make it 2-2, in a fine comeback.
“The lads responded brilliantly – their mentality was spot on. It would have been an injustice if we’d come away empty-handed tonight after all the chances we created. I was really pleased with our attitude – we kept it together even when we were two goals down. The substitutes proved decisive but the credit must go to the lads who came on. We stayed in the game by sticking to our plan. I have lots of quality players in this squad and it’s only right they should get on the pitch and show what they can do,” said Spalletti as quoted by Napoli’s official website.
“[Victor] Osimhen is a thoroughbred striker. He can develop into a top player He just needs to understand a few things and then he can become a world-class centre forward,” he added.
West Ham United manager David Moyes expressed his delight after the team opened their UEFA Europa League campaign with a 2-0 victory over Dinamo Zagreb. Michail Antonio and Declan Rice scored the goals on a triumphant evening for the Hammers in the Croatian capital.
“It’s great to come here and be the first team in 14 Europa League group stage games to win at Dinamo Zagreb. I never even knew that stat, so it’s a great one to have. It shows that the players are playing really well at the moment, we’ve got a good balance and our football was good. We maybe wanted a few more opportunities from it, but hopefully they’ll come and certainly in the opening games of the season we got it,” said Moyes as quoted by West Ham’s official website.
“But coming away from home in Europe to Zagreb, which we probably see as being one of the hardest away trips, you have to say that it’s a great job for the first time in a while that we’ve been [on this stage] and the players have done really well. Let’s not get carried away, we’ve played one game in the group and there will be some really big sides that come into this competition once we get after Christmas time, so that’s why I keep using the term in my interviews: ‘Let’s see if we can have European football after Christmas’. That’s what we want to do,” he added.
“We need to manage the group. Tonight we tried to manage a few of the players, and give a few opportunities as well to get players in the side and get them match fit to play. i thought all the players did a really good job tonight,” concluded Moyes.
