Napoli vs. Chievo Verona: Just kick the Flying Donkey

It's been a miserable week for Napoli. Between the losses to Juventus and Dnipro, the match fixing charges leveled against the club and captain Paolo Cannavaro by the Italian sports justice, and UEFA's fine and threat to close the Sao Paolo over fan behavior, this week has just sucked. Despite all that, the show must go on, if you can ever call a match involved Chievo a show.

We here at the Siren's Song do not approve of the Flying Donkeys and their tactics, nor shall we be happy until they are where they belong in Serie B (or lower). Until that happens, they must be dealt with and Napoli will welcome them this weekend in the hopes of pushing away some of the bad juju that has settled over the club in the past few days.

It's time to get mean! It's time to get angry! After all, nothing heals the spirit like whipping a donkey (I'll probably get a letter from PETA about that).

Napoli enter the match healthy and likely rested considering Mazzarri rolled out his B-team in the loss to Dnipro on Thursday. At this point, I don't think anyone cares who starts as long as they show up and play some proper football, rather than the lackluster and uninspired junk we've seen during the last week.

I wouldn't expect any sudden tactical shifts of course. Mazzarri will role out his usual 3-4-1-2 but tactical issues aren't really of big importance for me in this match. This will be more about attitude and will power in the sense that Napoli have taken a couple of hard shots to the jaw, yet they are still in second place in the league and in the mix to qualify out of their Europa League group. Despite everything, things are still not that bad...but they could start to get bad real fast if this team loses focus against Chievo.

All jokes aside about the Flying Donkeys, they are a team that finds ways to get results, at least enough to keep them afloat in the league. Napoli have had a nasty habit in recent years of finding ways to slip up against opponents they should beat. That's not a fun combination and this match should serve as a barometer for this team's mental state at the moment.