Lobotka could leave Napoli in January, says club radio

Lobotka could leave Napoli in January, says club radio director

He predicts four players out and four in, with midfield the priority just 65 days after the summer window closed. His numbers do not add up.

by Rosaria CimminoThursday 5 November, 19:07 CET· 1 hour ago

Stanislav Lobotka — Foto: Harpagornis · CC BY-SA 4.0

“For me, Napoli will sell Lobotka in January too.” That is the view of the director of the club’s official radio station, who says Manna is already working on the window that reopens on 2 January: “Four players will leave and four will arrive.”

His reading of the squad is blunt: “Napoli are packed with wide forwards. Napoli are packed with defenders. What don’t Napoli have? Midfielders.” He says Anguissa and McTominay are “no longer enough” and that Allegri sees De Bruyne as a playmaker. For more “physicality in midfield” he wants three midfielders, two of them young players from Ligue 1, plus a defender and “a 20-goal striker”. Four more sales and four more signings would follow in June.

The sums do not work. Three midfielders, a defender and a striker make five arrivals, not four. And “packed with defenders” is hard to square with the Dragão (Porto’s ground), where Allegri used Beukema, Rrahmani and Rafa Marín and not a single specialist full-back. Lobotka, meanwhile, is out with a left ankle problem: about six weeks, according to Allegri.

The real question is a different one. If the midfield already needs rebuilding two months after the window shut, who answers for it? Manna is already under fire over Badiashile and Okafor. First, though, come league leaders Lazio at the Maradona on Sunday 8 November, 12:30 CET (11:30 UK, 06:30 ET), with no Lobotka and no De Bruyne.