Benitez still hopeful of achieving second

Rafael Benitez remains confident his Napoli side are capable of chasing down second-placed Roma in Serie A.

The San Paolo outfit suffered a home defeat to Fiorentina on Sunday – Joaquin finding the net late on after Faouzi Ghoulam had been sent off in the first half for a challenge on Marko Bakic.

Yet head coach Benitez still believes his charges can catch a Roma outfit that boast a six-point lead over Napoli and a game in hand.

“I continue to have faith and am still targeting Roma in second place,” stressed the Spaniard. “Of course it’s a concern the gap has opened up to six points, but we have to do our duty and see what happens.

“When we play like (we did on Sunday), we have to win.”

“We did very well and had many scoring opportunities, as even down to 10 we wanted to score. It’s a shame it went like this, but the players gave their all.

“We were still better with 10 men than Fiorentina. That’s why I didn’t make many changes. They put Juan Cuadrado on the right and so I adjusted some things to have more freshness at the back.”

Benitez refused to comment on the performance of referee Paolo Tagliavento, preferring to turn his attentions to Wednesday’s trip to Catania.

“I don’t talk about referees, so it’s down to you to comment and nothing changes anyway,” he added. “Now I am focused on the next game.”