Conte: ‘Absurd Napoli injuries, McTominay could not take stupid risks’
Antonio Conte is frustrated at the ‘absurd’ number of Napoli injuries, hailing the team’s ‘heart’ to beat Genoa 3-2 down to 10 men, and explaining the Scott McTominay setback.
It seemed to be going in the worst possible way for the Partenopei at Marassi, as Genoa earned a penalty after 15 seconds, then when Rasmus Hojlund and McTominay had turned it around, the Scotland international went off injured.
“McTominay has been carrying this problem since the start of the year, it gets inflamed around the tendon, every now and then it hurts and he has to play at a lower gear. He could’ve continued, but this is a player who I’d rather have at 100 per cent rather than take stupid risks,” Conte told DAZN Italia.
A second Alessandro Buongiorno howler gifted the Lorenzo Colombo equaliser and Juan Jesus saw red, but the 10 men snatched the 3-2 victory in stoppages when Hojlund converted the penalty, earned by Antonio Vergara.
Conte frustrated at endless Napoli problems
“I think the victory goes beyond what we showed, we basically gave away two goals to Genoa, but getting back on our feet after that was not easy. We did it, we had this other setback of the red card, but we never stopped pushing and trying to get the win.
“This shows the team never gives in. Every Sunday seems to bring a new obstacle, I was curious to see how the team would react without Di Lorenzo, who is such an important figure for his quality and charisma. I saw a strong response from everyone.
“These are lads who are overcoming everything with pure heart. I had to make some decisions in the moment, in all honesty it was a match we deserved to win, but congratulations to Genoa and Daniele De Rossi, this is a team that won’t have problems staying in Serie A. The atmosphere at Marassi was like being in the Premier League.”
At one stage when McTominay was hurt, clutching the back of the right thigh, Conte turned towards the bench and declared in exasperated fashion that he’d have to play in a minute.
“I always tell the lads, whether we win or lose, we must end the game with heads held high, having given our all, made the fans proud, and honoured the badge on the shirt.
“After that, let’s be clear, it is so difficult. Players make the history of a match, a coach can only do so much when he doesn’t have many players.”
Conte was asked if this has been the most draining and difficult season of his management career.
“It is an absurd season, certainly. If we are intelligent people, we all ought to reflect on the construction of the squad, on the transfer strategy that we did, because compared to other teams, we have a very reduced squad. We can’t even look to the youth academy,” replied the coach.
“We have players like Anguissa, who cannot seem to make a full recovery, Gilmour had surgery and still has problems, so did De Bruyne, Lukaku was out for a long time, Di Lorenzo will be out for two months, we don’t know what’s going to happen with McTominay.”
There were some curious decisions from the coach, who took off Buongiorno straight after the second howler, then when Juan Jesus saw red, opted to remove substitute Giovane to introduce a new defender, meaning the Brazilian was only on for 22 minutes.
Juan Jesus will be suspended against Roma next week, and it remains to be seen what is wrong with McTominay.
“Look here, we can list all we want, I congratulate these lads and those like Vergara who made the most of the opportunity and grew over the last six months. Ambrosino had too, but he preferred to go and play in Serie B,” concluded Conte.
“All we can do is pick up the remaining pieces, prepare for Como in the Coppa Italia, who even rested this weekend as their game against Milan was postponed. I don’t know if McTominay can recover for that, but he’d be a big loss if he didn’t.”