Napoli go into a training camp and Manna's record comes under scrutiny

Aurelio De Laurentiis wanted to send the squad into a ritiro (a closed training camp away from home) after the defeat in Venezia. Giovanni Manna, the sporting director, talked him out of it at the last minute. This time the president has done it his way. The players check in at the Gli Dei hotel in Pozzuoli at 19:00 on Friday 6 November and will stay there until the Lazio game.

Until a few days ago, Massimiliano Allegri was the only man in the dock. Now the fanbase is asking more and more openly a question it had never put so bluntly: what is Manna for at this Napoli? We have already written about the Badiashile and Okafor cases. What is new is that the case against him has widened to three charges. He allegedly did not look for the cause of the injuries. He allegedly got his signings wrong, apart from a few cheap ones whose value is far from certain. And he allegedly did not warn the coach about the cracks opening up inside the squad.

The injury list

The first charge is measured in the treatment room. Against Lazio on Sunday, Napoli will be without Buongiorno, Badiashile, Favasuli, Di Lorenzo, Spinazzola, Olivera, Lobotka, Neres, Alisson Santos and De Bruyne, with Marianucci suspended. Milinković-Savić is a doubt. In Porto there was not a single specialist full-back. Badiashile, on loan from Chelsea, returns in December. Buongiorno, after meniscus surgery, is due back in January.

Whoever builds a squad also answers for how well it holds up. A list this long, lasting this many weeks, cannot be filed away as bad luck. It is a question for the sporting director before it is one for the medical staff.

€100m and three questions

The second charge is the signings. In summer 2025, with Antonio Conte as coach, Lucca, Lang and Beukema arrived for around €100m in total. Lucca has not scored this season, and the talk for January is mostly of a loan. Beukema cost about €30m and missed several weeks of pre-season with a tendon problem. In Porto he made his first Champions League start, only his second start of the season. Lang came on in the 78th minute at the Dragão, with Napoli already 2-1 down.

The awkward question is a simple one. Did the coach demand these players, or did the sporting director shape the window without offering alternatives? Either way, that money is not showing on the pitch.

The third charge is the heaviest. After one week of work, the president and the sporting director were told that without two or three new, high-quality signings there would be trouble. The summer window closed on 1 September, and the trouble came.

Then there is the dressing room: the scenes between De Bruyne and Lucca in Porto, and Politano on the eve of the game at the Dragão.

"We keep falling back into the same mistakes we made."

In our view, holding together a group that is splitting apart is not only the coach's job. That is also what a sporting director is for.

Not a change of scapegoat

We are not trying to shift all the blame from one desk to another. Allegri answers for his choices, and the 4-1 in Porto is his too. De Laurentiis picks the people and signs the cheques. But a Napoli side eighth on 14 points, nine short of the fourth place the coach set as his target, is the product of a squad before it is the product of a bench.

The window reopens on 2 January, and there is already talk of four players leaving and four arriving. Before Manna is handed that window, the club needs to know whether he still has the trust to run it.

Leaders Lazio come to the Maradona on Sunday 8 November at 12:30 CET (11:30 UK, 06:30 ET), with 28 points, exactly double Napoli's total. In Pozzuoli, Allegri has to find a team to send out from what the sporting director has given him.