Roma stalemate was one-way traffic – Sarri

Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri complained that his side’s 0-0 Serie A stalemate with Roma was “one-way traffic”.

After Inter won 4-0 at Udinese on Saturday to stretch their lead at the top of the league to four points, neither side could afford to lose.

“If this was a boxing match, Roma’s corner would’ve thrown in the towel,” Sarri said.

Roma had a goal disallowed when Antonio Rudiger’s cross bent out of play, but Sarri said: “In any case, Juan Iturbe was fouling Raul Albiol in the middle, so it should’ve been disallowed anyway.”

He added: “It was one-way traffic, as we were the only team playing football. Roma did better than usual defensively, we had many opportunities that we wasted in front of goal.

“We didn’t make the most of a pretty obvious supremacy throughout the match.”

Sarri added that star striker Gonzalo Higuain “could have done more” after drawing a blank for the first time in nine league games at the Stadio San Paolo.

He said: “In the first half we created so much despite getting several movements wrong. The team left Pipita [Higuain] isolated, above all in the first half.

“Roma took an unusual attitude, sitting back deep and clamming up, which was difficult to break down.

“Over the break my team realised what it had to do and we created far more scoring opportunities.”