Gallo warns Napoli's midfield collapses without Anguissa and McTominay

Massimiliano Gallo delivered a blunt verdict on Napoli's transfer window on Un Calcio alla Radio, on Radio Napoli Centrale: "If Anguissa and McTominay get injured there's no midfield left. Vergara isn't a midfielder." He called the squad that emerged from the market "unbalanced."

Those alibis line up with the run of results. The 0-1 home defeat to Arsenal at the Maradona on Wednesday 9 September — Allegri's Champions League debut following Antonio Conte's departure — came after Napoli blew a 2-0 lead away to Inter at San Siro and lost at home to Como. But for Gallo, context no longer excuses a Napoli side sitting 12th with 3 points from three league games: "Allegri has to add value, and so far he hasn't."

The midfield concern is not hypothetical. McTominay is already sidelined after Wednesday's surgery for a cardiac arrhythmia, with around two weeks out expected, while Antonio Vergara — fresh off his first senior call-up to Italy under Roberto Mancini — remains the utility player Allegri may have to shift into midfield for the Bologna game. That is exactly the weak point Gallo identifies in a squad built with a net spend of around €47.5m this summer.

His verdict on the forwards was just as sharp: "We're full of wingers and second strikers who don't offer much of a threat. We need players who make a difference." The numbers from the first three matchdays back him up: five goals scored, five conceded, and just one win in three.

The most personal passage concerned the change of coach. Gallo said he was "pro-Conte" up to his exit and is "pro-Allegri" now, and he reads Conte's decision to leave Napoli this summer this way: "Conte wanted to leave, because maybe he understood the squad was worn out and that there wasn't going to be a real transfer window. He thought perhaps the team had peaked. And he didn't want to damage his image."

To defend Allegri, Gallo reached for comparisons. He likened the narrative around the head coach over the past seven years to that of Carlo Ancelotti, who finished tenth with Everton.

"Tenth place is the best result of the last ten years."

He also pointed to the Coppa Italia Allegri won with Juventus — "and whoever came after didn't do better," he said, referring to Thiago Motta's sacking and Luciano Spalletti's failure to reach the Champions League — and the second place Allegri reached with Milan "with a modest squad," before his fallout with the club's board. These arguments add to a debate already raging this week over Allegri's ultra-defensive approach.

Any answer will have to come from the pitch: Bologna are due at the Maradona on Sunday 13 September at 18:00 CET (17:00 UK, 12:00 ET) for matchday four.