Luciano Spalletti believes Pep Guardiola is playing a "game" after the Manchester City boss heaped praise on the impressive Napoli manager.
Guardiola claimed Napoli are "perhaps the best team in Europe" after City's win against RB Leipzig in the Champions League on Tuesday. City could be drawn against Napoli in the quarter-finals after the Italians knocked out Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday.
Napoli are 18 points clear of Inter Milan at the top of Serie A and look set to win their first title in 33 years, when Diego Maradona was leading their attack. Despite this, Spalletti is not impressed by Guardiola's comments and has highlighted City's huge transfer budget.
Spalletti was asked about Guardiola's comments after Napoli's 3-0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday, which secured a 5-0 aggregate triumph over the German side. "No," said the Italian coach when asked by Amazon Prime Italia if he was flattered.
Spalletti added, "I don’t feel proud, I don’t feel anything. I know this game that everyone does to put pressure on the others. Are we putting Napoli in front of Manchester City? If they can spend €900million compared to our €9m [figures not accurate], there must be a reason. It’s a game to build us up so they can knock us down."
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Napoli spent around €60m (£52.8m) on players last summer - signing the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia - but they raised more than €70m (£61.7m) by selling Kalidou Koulibaly to Chelsea, Fabian Ruiz to Paris Saint-Germain and Arkadiusz Milik to Marseille.
Luciano Spalletti was disappointed with Pep Guardiola's remarks (UEFA via Getty Images)What's your opinion of Luciano Spalletti's response to Pep Guardiola's comments? Let us know in the comments below!
Although City raised a whopping £180m last summer by selling players - including Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal - their net spend during the last five years is £213m. Premier League clubs have far greater transfer budgets than Italian teams.
The top 20 clubs in Italy spent a combined total of €31m (£27.3m) in January, while the Premier League's combined amount was €829m (£730m). Despite this, three Italian clubs - Napoli, Inter and AC Milan - have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League, with only City and Chelsea representing English clubs in the last eight.
Spalletti is concerned Guardiola is simply playing mind games ahead of a potential quarter-final clash between the two sides. "Napoli are perhaps the best team in Europe this season," said Guardiola on Tuesday. "In terms of playing style, they are close to Arsenal."
Guardiola's comments have also not been well received by Arsenal supporters, who believe the Spaniard is trying to derail their Premier League charge. Defending champions City are second in the table - five points behind leaders Arsenal in the title race.
On Napoli's win against Frankfurt, Spalletti added, "It is a great result, we are going to enjoy it along with all our fans. Now it becomes fundamental that we maintain the same attitude we had this evening, because we didn’t have the same quality as usual at the start, but we still executed the moves well and allowed very little to the opposition.
"We kept clear heads. If Napoli in the entire history of this club had not reached the quarter-finals before, that means this is a great result."
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