Napoli can secure three points and move closer to securing qualification to the Champions League knockout stage when they face Rijeka at the San Paolo on Thursday. Group rivals AZ and Real Sociedad face each other so Napoli has a chance to gain ground on one. In the pre-match conference, Gattuso discussed the state of the team as it approaches the match: "We have made many mistakes in the first half. Against Milan in the first 20 minutes we had a lot of errors in build up. We must reflect, we talk about it with the staff to try to improve. The team has quality, but we must raise the bar from the start of the match and not give anything away.
Yesterday we analyzed several clips of times we had a numerical superiority and we couldn't find the right support. Dries was a sniper in recent years, now there are more mistakes from his position. The quality of the play doesn't worry me and when I discuss meanness I refer both to the offensive and defensive phases. We are focusing on our work, we must not look for excuses. Anyone who makes excuses can stay at home, I want people with passion. I see all that in my team, they are behind me and the numbers say we are playing very good football. We are on a good path, the things that came out of the press are not true, I only said that we must raise the bar."
