Calzona on ‘troubled’ Napoli and ‘forced’ Cajuste pick

Francesco Calzona admits ‘it has been a troubled week’ for Napoli and reveals why he is ‘forced’ into starting Jens Cajuste against Roma.

It kicks off at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona at 17.00 UK time (16.00 GMT).

You can follow all the build-up and action as it happens from today’s five Serie A games on the LIVEBLOG.

The Partenopei badly need a boost after scraping just one point from two matches against relegation strugglers Frosinone and Empoli.

“It has been a troubled week, we are happy the game is here so we can shake off everything we dealt with over the last few days,” Calzona told Sky Sport Italia.

Their third coach of the season was very critical of the players last week, so was it a way of taking the pressure off the club and President Aurelio De Laurentiis?

“I spoke entirely for myself. The players go on the pitch, I take responsibility as coach, that is only normal and I don’t think that I said anything particularly exceptional.”

Calzona forced into change

Piotr Zielinski and Pierluigi Gollini are on the treatment table, though Mario Rui and Amir Rrahmani return from suspension.

Hamed Junior Traore was expected to start in midfield, but it is Cajuste instead.

“We also have problems for Traore, who has a screw where he had the surgery and it irritates him, so we are rather forced into this choice. We need to shake off all the mentality concerns we’ve had recently and put in a good performance. You can lose after a good performance, but I think a performance at least in the long run does pay off.”

Anything short of a win here would effectively rule Napoli out of the race for the top five, as even the Europa League is by no means certain in their current situation.

It’s a big fall from grace considering a year ago they were celebrating the Scudetto triumph.