By Akeem Lawal
NAPOLI goalkeeper David Ospina has described Victor Osimhen as a great addition, as he has brought a lot of power and pace to the Serie A side, Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com reports.
The Nigeria international is one of the players that stood out from the crowd during pre-season and the former Arsenal goalkeeper believes the 21-year-old has a big future ahead of him.
The Super Eagles forward, who became Napoli’s record signing when he joined from Lille in the summer for a reported 70 million euros, was brought on for his debut after an hour of Sunday’s Serie A match at Parma and made an instant impact in their 2-0 win.
Despite playing for just 29 minutes of the encounter, the striker emerged fastest player on the pitch clocking a staggering maximum sprint speed of 34.05 km/h and Ospina lavished praise of the striker for his performance.
"Victor brought a lot of power and pace to the team. Then he is a very calm boy who settled in immediately and I am sure it will be a wonderful year for him in which he will show his talent," said the Colombian keeper told Radio Kiss Kiss.
Napoli are yet to concede a single goal this season – including pre-season games – but Ospina was quick to credit his team-mates for their contribution to that record.
“As a goalkeeper, you feel secure when you have defenders playing in front of you like the ones we have in our squad,” he said. “Keeping clean sheets is the first thing we need to do to gain confidence, because we know we have talented forwards up top who are always capable of scoring.”
The experienced goalkeeper believes Napoli have what it takes to compete for the biggest prizes on offer to the team this season.
“This group can compete at the highest level,” said Ospina, speaking on Wednesday. “Getting off to a winning start gives you a boost and gives you that confidence. We worked very hard in pre-season – we’re coming off the back of an intense period of preparation and now we want to perform well on the pitch. We have the quality required to have a good season.”
Ospina pinpointed a return to the Champions League as a key goal for the season ahead.
“We need to take it step by step and aim to win every game, then we’ll see how we get on,” he said. “Our objective is certainly to return to the Champions League. It won’t be easy because there are lots of competitive teams, but we feel capable of competing for big things. We need to turn in a big performance against Genoa on Sunday to ensure we keep moving forward. Winning helps you to keep winning, but every team is difficult in this league. We need to focus on ourselves and give everything for the good of the team.”
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