Serie A champions Napoli begin their title defence without their top scorer from last season after Romelu Lukaku’s injury, but manager Antonio Conte said on Friday that his players could handle anything and would not be looking for excuses.
Lukaku suffered a serious thigh injury in a pre-season friendly, and Napoli could be without the Belgian striker for several weeks, if not months, but Conte is used to overcoming adversity.
Last season, having seen Victor Osimhen leave at the beginning of the campaign, Napoli then sold Georgian playmaker Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to Paris St Germain in January. Conte carried on regardless, and landed the Scudetto.
“It’s an important injury for a player who had a specific value. He had it last year in the Scudetto win, but we know very well that these situations can happen during the year,” Conte told reporters ahead of Saturday’s game at Sassuolo.
“Something important happened last year too, not only in terms of injuries, but it can also happen in the transfer market, something that seems to make everything collapse.
“But these guys have shown last year that they can cope with everything, what we have to do is not go after recriminations, to find alibis, what we have to do is find the solution. We did it last year at every difficulty, we never cried, but we found solutions.”
Conte now faces the difficult task of repeating what he achieved at Napoli last season, at a club which has never managed to retain a league title, failing most recently two seasons ago, before Conte took charge.
“When Napoli started as favourites after the last Scudetto win, with Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia, Piotr Zielinski, we finished 10th,” Conte said.
“It needs to be imposed well in everyone’s mind, even the fans and the city, because everyone wins, everyone celebrates, and in the event, everyone loses.”
While it is clear that Napoli are on the hunt for another striker, Conte refused to speak about the transfer market, focusing instead on the task ahead.
“It will be a difficult championship, with many teams strengthened,” Conte said.
“We have the Scudetto on the shirt and by definition you are among the favourites even if you lose all the players, you always have that, which counts you among the favourites. But as I said that’s not enough.
“With what is made available to me, we have to try to do our best, we have always reasoned like this and last year we arrived at something extraordinary.”
