Napoli's Champions League campaign came to an end as Chelsea edged to a 3-2 win at the Stadio Maradona in the last game of the league phase
The visitors broke the deadlock through Enzo Fernandez from the penalty spot before a wondrous goal by Antonio Vergara and a fine finish from Rasmus Hojlund turned the tables.
However, after the break Joao Pedro scored twice for Chelsea to give them victory and leave Napoli outside the play-off spots.
Antonio Conte offered the following assessment:
"It's a shame because the team deserved a better result today. What made the difference was the individual quality – most notably Joao Pedro, who scored two exceptional goals, but before they equalised we played better than Chelsea.
“My players deserve credit because they performed really well. We played good football. We must continue with this mindset because this is the way forward.
“I wouldn't say it's a disaster because in a year and a half we've won the league title and the Super Cup. You have to assess things calmly, also considering the injury emergency we've had to deal with
“We're sad for our fans who got behind us and applauded the team for their efforts. Our place in the play-offs was compromised in Copenhagen as we should have won that game. Looking at this evening, I think we did ourselves justice and perhaps deserved a play-off spot.”
Giovanni Di Lorenzo was of a similar idea:
“We should have ensured our place in Copenhagen but unfortunately we let the chance slip away from us. We made some mistakes along the way and dropped too many points.
“There's not much we can say about our performance tonight. We gave everything and deserved a better result. Now we need to kick on from here.
“We're paying the price for lots of injuries but if we maintain this intensity we can climb back up, get some key players back and still have high targets for this season.”
Napoli 2-3 Chelsea (HT 2-1)
Scorers: Fernandez 19 (pen), Vergara 33, Hojlund 43, Joao Pedro 61, 82.
NAPOLI: Meret; Di Lorenzo, Juan Jesus (Gutierrez 67), Buongiorno; Spinazzola (Beukema 82), Lobotka, McTominay, Olivera; Vergara, Elmas (Lukaku 82) Hojlund.
Coach: Conte.
CHELSEA: Sanchez; Gusto (Chalobah 59), James, Fofana, Cucurella; Santos (Gittens 59), Caicedo; Estevao (Garnacho 74), Fernandez, Pedro Neto (Palmer 46), Joao Pedro.
Coach: Rosenior.
Referee: Turpin (France).
Booked: Juan Jesus, Elmas, Fofana.
