Alvino: Napoli's squad is Serie A's second-oldest, give Allegri time

Napoli sit twelfth with 3 points from 3 games, after back-to-back league defeats to Como and Inter and an opening Champions League loss to Arsenal — a competition that does not affect the Serie A table but still weighs on the mood of an already nervous fanbase. Against that backdrop, Carlo Alvino used an editorial on TeleClub Italia to defend Massimiliano Allegri's work and to attack those he says are "poisoning" the club's environment.

The journalist went beyond a straightforward defence and set out what he believes the head coach is actually working on: "He's working to give an identity to a squad that is certainly old — the second-oldest in Serie A — especially in some key players. A squad that, if you like, is also incomplete in some strategic areas."

The subject of an incomplete transfer window is not new. The summer window closed on 1 September with a net spend of about minus €47.5m and no permanent first-team arrivals, prompting Ciro Mertens to say one more signing was needed and forcing Manna to respond to criticism. Alvino adds a new angle to that debate: not just too few arrivals, but an existing squad that has aged specifically in its key positions.

Here, though, the call for patience runs into a fact Alvino does not deny: the team Allegri must "tune up" is the one the club chose not to reinforce sufficiently in summer. Asking for time to build an identity is fair, but time alone does not buy a midfielder or make a squad younger — whoever decided not to act in the transfer window bears responsibility for that choice just as much as the head coach bears responsibility for results on the pitch.

Alvino closed with no concessions for those expecting a fully-formed Napoli after three matchdays: "Demanding everything immediately from a group that is still structurally a work in progress means, as far as I'm concerned, ignoring the facts." The first test of that patience comes on Sunday 13 September at 18:00 CET at the Maradona, against Bologna.