Maurizio Sarri Insists Napoli 'Aren't Title Contenders' Following Home Defeat by Roma

Maurizio Sarri has attempted to relieve some of the pressure on his players by trying to insist that Napoli are not contenders for this year's Scudetto.

The Partenopei suffered a damaging 4-2 defeat to Roma on Saturday, but remain top of the league.

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The Bianconeri are just a point behind the leaders after beating Lazio in the last minute thanks to a goal from Paulo Dybala, but they do have a game in hand on Sarri's team.

With the title race looking like it could go down to the wire between the two sides, Sarri has attempted to kick start some mind games by claiming his side aren't even contenders.

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He told Premium Sport, as quoted by Calciomercato: "We made 27 shots on target and we were dominating in the first half. We need to understand why Roma managed to score so many goals without touching many balls in our area. Our fans know we are doing it all, we are doing well but we are not the best club in Italy.

"Juventus are from another planet, they are the only contenders to win the Scudetto this season. We’ve been trying to make their life hard and we’ll try to do it till the end of the season.

"Dybala’s goal? I’ve already talked about this issue and it’s useless to repeat myself otherwise I’ll give alibis to my players and it would not fair because it’s our fault if we lost."

Sarri and Napoli will still harbour hopes of delivering the title, because they having nothing else to distract them now after exiting the Europa League at the hands of RB Leipzig.