De Laurentiis breaks his silence and praises Rafa

Aurelio De Laurentiis has been curiously silent of late, not making his usual public declarations and statements since early September, well before his trip to America that he returned from late last week. Today, Napoli's president finally broke that silence... sort of.

The club's official website put out a statement that De Laurentiis showed up today at Castel Volturno to give praise to Rafa Benitez and Riccardo Bigon for helping orchestrate Napoli's recent turnaround. When De Laurentiis left for Los Angeles, Napoli were in the midst of a tailspin, but three weeks later, they've got three wins on the trot and things are looking much improved.

De Laurentiis also took to his Twitter account to praise Benitez publicly, saying that Rafa "is doing a great job with the squad that is growing day by day without letting go until the end." He also praised the squad, declaring "I am also very happy with all the lads who are proving how much they care about the jersey by working with great professionalism." He also saw fit to share the following picture of him, Rafa, Bigon, and Andrea Chiavellis, Napoli's managing director.

Oggi un incontro piacevole e proficuo #ADL pic.twitter.com/lsv2n2nPvF

— AurelioDeLaurentiis (@ADeLaurentiis) October 15, 2014

Who knows if this is going to be enough to allay some of the questions of what De Laurentiis has been up to and why he's been so quiet of late, but it is good to hear from him again, even if in an indirect fashion.