Carlo Ancelotti Insists Napoli 'Can Overturn' Europa League Deficit After Lacklustre Display

Carlo Ancelotti insists Napoli can turn around their Europa League quarter-final tie against Arsenal, despite seeing his side slide to a comfortable 2-0 defeat at the Emirates Stadium.

I Partenopei feel behind just before the quarter of an hour mark through an Aaron Ramsey strike, and they were undone again ten minutes later when Lucas Torreira's effort was deflected into his own net by Kalidou Koulibaly.

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The visitors grew into the game during the second half and perhaps could, and should, have reduced the arrears, with Lorenzo Insigne and Piotr Zielinski both spurning excellent chances. With that in mind, Ancelotti claimed after the game that overturning the deficit is not out of the question.

"What gives me hope? The fact that Arsenal aren't a team that's un-penetrable," Ancelotti said, as quoted by GianlucaDiMarzio. "We proved this in the second half: we don't need frenzy and anxiety, we can overturn this. It won't be easy, it wasn't before and knew it. But it's not impossible." 

The Napoli boss continued by acknowledging that his side made a number of mistakes, and this contributed heavily to their first half downfall.

He added: "Today we committed a lot of technical errors: we made too many mistakes and it was surprising to see so many errors.

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"Arsenal surprised us, for knowing that they would press a lot in the beginning. In fact courage was missing, above all at the beginning. 

"To get back into the game was then difficult, but in some areas we did it. We even had opportunities to score, we did not succeed: we hope that our fans can give us a hand to make up the distance."

The former Chelsea boss finished by highlighting reasons to be optimistic, citing the Gunners' indifferent away form.

"There is the opportunity to play again and they have given up goals away from home. We maintain our faith and optimism."