Pochesci urges Allegri to ditch caution and rediscover Cagliari courage

Speaking on Radio Tutto Napoli, the former coach argues Napoli's problem isn't Højlund but Allegri's overly cautious approach, and sets out how De Bruyne and the team's shape should change instead.

by Gennaro SanninoWednesday 23 September, 22:58 CET· 3 hours ago

Pochesci — Foto: tuttomercatoweb.com

"There's no Højlund problem, it's a team problem." Sandro Pochesci, speaking on Radio Tutto Napoli, shifted the focus from the striker missing chances to the head coach not creating them for him. For Pochesci the responsibility lies with Massimiliano Allegri, "too used to 1-0 wins": the fix, he said, is "the courage coaches have at the start of their careers" — the same courage Allegri showed at Cagliari.

The sharpest line came when Pochesci asked Allegri to "push the team up twenty metres" to free Højlund, who has scored once in five league matches this season, a goal from outside the box against Inter, not from inside the penalty area where he was scoring regularly last season. "Enough of the narrow 1-0s," he said, referring to corto muso, Allegri's own term for grinding out tight wins. "Start thinking like Zeman" — a nod to Zdeněk Zeman, the coach synonymous with all-out attacking football. It was a call to change philosophy, not to tweak a line-up.

On the tactical side, Pochesci was in no doubt: between the 4-2-3-1 and the 4-3-3 — the alternative Allegri is said to be weighing once all his midfielders are fit again — the former remains, for him, "the ideal system". His overall verdict on the coach stayed positive, though: "One of the best, as a man and as a manager," and "the right coach for Napoli."

As an example he pointed to the San Siro game against Inter. "Up to 2-0 it was a great Napoli. Then football is strange." Napoli had led 2-0 before losing 3-2, one of the defeats behind seven points from five matches and ninth place in the table.

On Kevin De Bruyne, too, Pochesci called for a change of expectations: "You can't ask of him what he was, only what he is." Decisive near goal rather than a 90-minute box-to-box midfielder in the City mould, De Bruyne should, in his view, play behind three forwards, with the team shaped precisely around him.

It is a conditional endorsement, not a blanket defence: Pochesci asked for "a few more weeks", not unlimited time, while the city's debate between those wanting Allegri sacked and those still backing him continues. The uncomfortable point he leaves on the table: if the squad "is the same one, and it's strong", as he himself put it, the problem lies entirely in the choices of whoever is coaching it.

Before the league resumes — Napoli host Frosinone at the Maradona on Saturday 10 October — Allegri's side play a friendly against Avellino at the Partenio-Adriano Lombardi on Saturday 26 September: the first, unofficial, chance to see whether the courage Pochesci is calling for shows up on the pitch.