Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis is happy Maurizio Sarri has proved his critics wrong.

Napoli now sit top of the Serie A table.

ADL told TMW: “They wrote terrible things about me all over the city, and a few in the Curva wrote that I was wrong to take him.

“It was a lot of fun, because he said to me: 'Presidente, I will lose the first six games'. I replied: 'My love, it's better to win right away here, have you seen these slogans?'.

“He was very good in that regard though, he got rid of the idea of a trequartista, since I hadn't bought [Riccardo] Saponara, but he had geniuses like [Dries] Mertens, [Lorenzo] Insigne, [Gonzalo] Higuain, [Jose] Callejon.

“How do you play them? He changed and won one after another, becoming very strong."