Napoli coach Francesco Calzona insists they were denied a penalty in their Champions League defeat at Barcelona.

Napoli lost 3-1 on the night, 4-2 on aggregate in the round of 16 tie.

“Clearly, there is disappointment, because we came here trying to win the game. We had a very bad start, lost the ball an infinite number of times and you will pay when you allow so many counter-attacks to a side like this," Calzona told Sport Mediaset.

“It was very different in the first leg, I had only got there the day before and it was difficult to organise something. Barcelona are a strong team, but we gave the ball away too cheaply and once we managed to fix a few of those issues, we were already 2-0 down.

“We were too spread out and too slow to react when losing the ball. The only excuse is that we did not have much time to work on these things in training, but it's true that every time we lost the ball, we were also wide and allowed Barcelona dangerous counter-attacks."

On a penalty call for Victor Osimhen, Calzona also said: “Looking at the footage, it does seem to be a penalty. I cannot understand why the VAR at these levels would not intervene in a situation like that. They should take all the time necessary to come to the right decision. It looks like a clear penalty and that could've changed the course of the game.

“I always talk about preventative marking when you are in possession and we did not do that well this evening, as we were too spread out and I didn't like that.

“We also had chances to equalise, but changing system late on, we lost our shape. This is a team that struggles when changing system and needs certainty. It's frustrating that we do not have the time to work on different approaches in training."