Carlo Ancelotti out as Napoli manager, replacement already lined up

After weeks of speculation, Napoli has finally decided to fire Carlo Ancelotti and they appear to already have his replacement ready.

The move itself isn’t a surprise, but the timing of it certainly is. Fans had been calling for Ancelotti to be fired for weeks as Napoli went nearly 2 full months without a win and saw themselves drop to 7th in the Serie A table. However, the decision to wait until hours after he led Napoli to a match day 6 win over Genk to advance to the Champions League round of 16 seems like an odd choice.

The decision brings an end to what can only be viewed as a disappointing year and a half for Napoli and Ancelotti. After presenting a tough challenge to Juventus in the Scudetto race for each of Maurizio Sarri’s seasons as manager, Napoli was out of the race last season before the midway point of the season. On top of that, they also failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the

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Champions League and were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia. They have followed that up with their worst start to a Serie A season since the 2009-10 season. They did manage to advance out of their Champions League group, but that wasn’t enough to save job.

According to Fabrizio Romano, Napoli is already preparing to announce Gennaro Gattuso as his replacement. Gattuso will join Napoli under circumstances similar to those that saw him introduced at AC Milan. He joined Milan the day after match day 14 in Serie A, with Milan carrying a record of 6-2-6 and sitting in 7th place in Serie A. Napoli is currently in 7th after 15 matches, with a record of 5-6-4. He was only able to get Milan up to 6th place and a Europa League spot by the end of that season and lost his job after a 5th place finish the following year. However, this will be by far the most talented squad Gennaro Gattuso has ever managed, so this could be an opportunity for him to show that he is a better manager than what he was able to demonstrate at Milan.

Gennaro Gattuso will have his work cut out for him as he needs to close an 8 point gap to get Napoli into the top 4, the only outcome that is considered acceptable to Napoli fans after their long run of recent success.