Naples, all the recent evils. And Buongiorno stops again

Naples, 11 April 2025 – Once upon a time there was a Napoli which, perhaps due to the running-in period still typical at the beginning of the season, especially when a new cycle is involved, often went behind but almost always recovered, taking all the points at stake and leaving the opponents with only many regrets. Today, however, there is a Napoli which starts like a rocket, takes the lead only to then drop in the second half and waste all or part of the margin acquired. Net of a ranking, the current one, still positive and open to possibilities on the championship front, the gap in the standings fromInter, today of 3 points, has its roots in this very trend, which in turn does not represent the only problem that has slowed down the march of the gang of Antonio Conte.  

Napoli's recent ills

  The very fresh news of the race From the Ara in reality it acts as a sort of sample of many of the recent ills of the Azzurri. The comebacks conceded, precisely, for the beauty (so to speak) of 8 points thrown to the nettles in the last 10 games: perhaps almost a scenario in a certain physiological sense to be foreseen given that in the other half of the field there was the Bologna, instead the team that recovered the most as below in the score (17 points). Still in the first part of the current season, the Napoli in the away version it was as solid as the one admired at the Maradona, if not even more spectacular and almost carefree because it is free from the pressures brought by the home crowd. Of course, the debut at Verona It had been one of those shocks, but it would later turn out to be an isolated crash before the similar one of As an, which occurred months later, when the Azzurri had already started the downward spiral that also and above all affected their away performance. The last victory of the Napoli far from Fuorigrotta it is dated 18st January, day of success at Gewiss Stadium at the expense of theAtalanta which seemed to be the prelude to an attempt to break away in the standings: since then, well 5 games, and not exactly all against top-tier opponents, without taking full stakes. Among the comebacks conceded, those against Roma, Udinese, Lazio and precisely Bologna, and very painful braking like that of Venice, Napoli has jammed, also a victim of the injury emergency (which is common to many other teams in this period) and the related reversals of the formation. To the overall decline especially away from home is added the one inserted in the arc of almost every match, including those won: the Napoli in the second half it becomes a timid and frightened team, which closes in on itself to protect the result acquired, succeeding or not. The tactic, more or less intended, had succeeded against Fiorentina e Milan, not without a good pinch of luck, before the rude awakening of the From the Ara, a match in which the Azzurri literally disappeared from the field in the second half. Just think of the emblematic data of xG (the Expected Goals), which for the second half on Monday night just plays 0.07, a very low number that can only be traced back to that free kick from the edge of the area kicked at the end by James Raspadori which would then have generated a pinball machine in the rossoblù area. Definitely too little to even hope for a kiss from Lady Luck, as there had been no shortage of in a first half of the season in which the Napoli he had been good, bold and, indeed, lucky.

It stops Good morning

  The two things often go hand in hand in football, as we know, and the opposite theory is also true: in periods that are not brilliant, problems are not lacking. It happens that the emergency risks returning to mutilate the choices of Tale: in view of the match againstEmpoli, to the disqualified Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa e Giovanni Di Lorenzo, not exactly two banal pawns in the chessboard of the Salento coach, is added Alessandro Good morning, who had missed the race of From the Ara apparently only for precautionary reasons. Instead, the tests carried out in the following days revealed a tendinopathy of the long adductor muscle of the right thigh for which the defender has already started the rehabilitation process. As usual, the Neapolitan club has not committed itself on recovery times for what in fact risks being an annoying problem in view of the final rush of the season. It is easy to talk about a seemingly easy calendar for the Napoli, but between old and new endogenous problems and the hunger of teams fighting for survival like theEmpoli, himself plagued by injuries, the hunt for a clean sweep to put pressure on theInter risks being more complicated than expected. On the side of the Azzurri there will be the Maradona, who will sign the contract on Monday evening11th sold out of the season, as well as the sixth in a rowAt the end of the championship there are still 7 games and, in fact, the Napoli he knows how to string together a streak of 7 wins in a rowIt happened between the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, when David Neres had exploded, even causing those like Khvisha Kvaratskhelia (as expected) today he became a regret. Then the Brazilian got injured, was out for almost two months and, upon his return, he became another player incapable of dragging the entire left-handed chain. Who knows if Tale will give the Brazilian another chance after the flop of From the Ara or if there is no return to that in the pipeline 3-5-2 which had made its way just when Good morning he had stopped for the first time and By Lorenzo had become the right-hand man. On Monday evening, however, the captain will also be missing, ready to be replaced by Pasquale Mazzocchi, with more offensive characteristics and therefore difficult to adapt to a three-man line. Everything therefore pushes for the continuation of the 4-3-3, but with the hope that in the meantime the condition of Neres has grown: otherwise there is the risk of influencing the entire offensive maneuver of the Azzurri, which in particular in the second half already suffers physiologically.

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