Gilmour outruns everyone and wins Allegri over

The Scot covered more ground than anyone on the pitch against Bologna and confirmed a midfield pairing with Lobotka that Conte never risked. Napoli stay 10th regardless.

by Gennaro SanninoWednesday 16 September, 11:08 CET· 1 hour ago

Billy Gilmour — Foto: Mattythewhite · CC BY-SA 4.0

When McTominay and Anguissa were both missing on the same afternoon, Allegri had no doubts: Gilmour started. The Scot answered by covering more distance than anyone else at the Maradona, 12,743 metres in just a hundred minutes, the highest figure of any Napoli player against Bologna.

It was not a one-off. Gilmour had already done well against Arsenal, then grew further against Bologna, to the point where he no longer needed to cede ground to Lobotka: the two now play together, a double pivot moving like a constant pendulum in midfield. The numbers show how he copes under pressure too: 61.54% of his actions were affected by opposition pressing, yet the Scot kept looking to play forward with his head up.

The Gilmour-Lobotka pairing had been an idea for two full seasons. Conte, who was curious to see it, never fielded it in his two years in charge, for different reasons each time. Allegri did it without hesitation, overhauling Napoli's starting 4-3-3.

Bologna, under Tedesco, read the game the same way: in trying to contain Napoli, the visitors worried more about shutting down Gilmour than marking Lobotka. It was not enough. The Slovak still found space to get into the box and score the goal that settled the game in the 66th minute, from a Favasuli assist.

A good number, not a problem solved

With this setup Napoli found more passing and quality, and Allegri has identified traits in Gilmour to build the team around. But the context remains a side 10th in the table with 6 points from 4 games, and doubts over the slow tempo do not disappear because of one good individual performance: last week the fanbase applauded Favasuli while still questioning the general sluggishness of the play, and a Scot who outruns everyone does not change that judgement on his own.

With McTominay out at least until October following heart surgery, and Anguissa still sidelined with a muscle strain, the Gilmour-Lobotka pairing is no longer an emergency option: it is the solution Napoli will, in all likelihood, also field on Sunday at the Franchi against Fiorentina.