Chivu: "Proud of the team. We were not alert enough in the second half"

“I want to speak about football, the match and what the players did. We played well in the first half, trying to maintain a balance and create chances: we hit the post twice, if I'm not mistaken. We went down a goal despite a good reaction at the end of the first half. Perhaps the enthusiasm from those positive moments made us lose a bit of balance after the break, as we were so determined to get back into the match. We went 2-0 behind but did well to pull one back. Unfortunately, after that incident, we wasted our energy by arguing with their bench and then we were not alert enough to turn the game around. We needlessly wasted energy. We needed to be alert, understand the dynamics and moments in the match. We lacked an understanding of danger for the second goal: we committed lots of players in the build up and a long ball from Spinazzola surprised us. We saw McTominay's movement but we were too late in closing it down. The third goal, however, came through a lack of concentration: we can't go and concede goals like that. I'm proud of my team and even more confident in them than I was before the match. The first half was great, we played with intensity and personality against a Napoli side with lots of desire. We dominated, we suffered when we needed to and we came here to impose our game from the start. However, football requires attention, alertness and quality in decisive moments: we lacked something in the second half. We can't waste energy on arguing with the opposing bench. We must only think about the match and what we want to do. We cannot think too much about this defeat and it won't cancel out all of the good things we did: we'll need to be mentally ready to restart, but this team has always managed to do this, I am convinced we'll do it again. We need to know that we are together, that we're a strong team that knows how to react and has done so in recent years. ”