Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti has explained why Manchester United loanee Axel Tuanzebe was left out of the Europa League squad.
The 24-year-old joined the Italian giants on loan for the remainder of the campaign last month, after his season-long loan deal at Aston Villa was terminated.
The centre-back has only played 10 minutes of Serie A football since arriving in Naples. He played the full 120 minutes against Fiorentina in the Italian Cup, but had a tough time against Dusan Vlahovic as Spalletti’s side got beat 5-2.
With a blockbuster Europa League tie to come this month against Barcelona, Tuanzebe would have been hoping to test himself against one of the biggest names in Europe.
But that opportunity won’t materialise as the United academy graduate was a glaring omission from Napoli’s squad list.
Spalletti, who spoke at a press conference before the match with Venezia, explained why he excluded Tuanzebe from the UEFA list.
The Napoli boss said: “I explain it badly, but then you have to explain to me the exclusion of another to insert him.
“The moment you would never want to be a coach is when you call a player in the office to tell him why he doesn’t do the tournament.
“At Inter I said it at 3-4 because there was the reduced Uefa list, there was a massacre, you create a group of excluded but they are calculations.
“In this case Manolas leaves and Ghoulam enters who was injured, they are evaluations, the left-back is missing, there are 3 central players with the return of Koulibaly.
“In front of the force must be maintained if you want to make your way. It’s still a shame for Axel, we’re getting to know each other, now he has to take care of his back but he immediately joined the group, he already knows how to speak a little Italian, in training he is very strong and also helps us with contrasts, we thank him.”
Tuanzebe was absent from today’s Serie A clash against Venezia due to muscle problems.
With Kalidou Koulibaly to return to the Napoli fold as well after tonight’s African Cup of Nations final, Axel Tuanzebe seemingly faces a real battle to make his time in Naples a success.
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