No complacency for high-flying Napoli

Napoli goalkeeper Morgan de Sanctis has warned his team-mates against complacency after they jumped to second on the Serie A table.

Walter Mazzarri’s side moved to within three points of league leaders AC Milan with a 1-0 victory over Lecce on Sunday, courtesy of Edison Cavani’s injury-time winner.

The win signed off on a stellar start to the term for the Naples side, but de Sanctis has warned his team-mates they must return from the mid-season break hungry for success if they are to continue their push for a Champions League berth.

“We should keep the tension high and be able to keep our feet on the ground,” the veteran stopper said.

“We’re conscious that all these results have been achieved thanks to humility, hard work and organisation. All these prerogatives should characterise Napoli’s work until the end of the season.”

“The main objective is to improve on last year’s campaign in the championship. On top of that, the team has secured a great result in Europe as well because we are the only Italian team in the Europa League.”

“All this means that we’re doing a great job. Last year we have finished sixth. An improvement could mean finishing fifth but that would only get us the same things as finishing sixth.”

“Since we want to be one of the teams competing for next year’s Champions League, considering that Inter Milan and Roma are quite late and they will surely battle for the ranking, we’ll do our best to achieve the highest possible position on May 22 (when the Serie A season concludes).”