Napoli go to Porto without a single full-back, and it is not bad luck

Napoli have ten players unavailable, enough to make up a second team. The more telling detail is that when they kick off in the Champions League at the Estádio do Dragão on Wednesday 4 November, at 21:00 CET (20:00 UK, 15:00 ET), they will not have one recognised full-back.

It was already known on Monday 2 November that Di Lorenzo and Olivera would not travel to Portugal. Now the full picture is clear, and "emergency" no longer describes it. An emergency lasts a few weeks. This is how the whole season has gone: every line-up is decided in the treatment room before it reaches the tactics board.

Two coaches, the same problem

Plenty of people in Naples would rather not hear this, but the problem did not start with Allegri. A year ago, injuries took key players away from Antonio Conte just as the title race needed them, and that season ended in second place with 76 points. Now there is a different coach and a different staff, and the same thing is happening.

When a problem runs across two seasons and two coaches, calling it bad luck means refusing to see it. If every absence leaves a hole, it is because the squad was built without real cover in the positions most exposed to injury. The people who assembled the squad answer for that before the man who picks the team.

In Porto, Allegri has three centre-backs available: Beukema, Rrahmani and Rafa Marín. Marianucci is not in the UEFA List A (the registered Champions League squad). On the flanks, the only option mentioned is Melnyk, an 18-year-old Ukrainian brought up from the Primavera (the youth side). Otherwise Allegri will have to improvise with players out of position.

To put it plainly, facing a Porto side who have won all ten league games, scoring 25 and conceding 4, with makeshift full-backs is a gamble. It is not one the coach chose.

No excuse for everything

That does not let anyone off the hook, and it should not become a convenient alibi. In Turin, Napoli managed one shot on target against Juventus's 18 attempts. The defence fell apart between the 70th and 87th minutes, with Marianucci sent off in between, and the absences only go so far in explaining that.

Napoli are eighth with 14 points after 10 games, 9 points off fourth place, which is the target Allegri has set. The injuries explain part of that record, not all of it. The coach's decisions and an unconvincing summer transfer window are as much a part of the story as the treatment room.

One figure shows how much a single player matters in this squad. With Rrahmani on the pitch, Napoli concede between 0.69 and 0.72 goals a game. Without him, the figure is about 1.7. When one defender is worth a goal a game, every time he is missing the team changes. That is the clearest evidence of how thin the cover is.

No fix is coming soon. The transfer window reopens on Saturday 2 January 2027, and until then the club can sign only free agents. For two months Allegri must work with what he has, and right now that is not enough to cover the flanks for a Champions League night.

After Porto on Wednesday comes Lazio, the league leaders, at the Maradona on Sunday 8 November at 12:30 CET (11:30 UK, 06:30 ET), with Marianucci suspended. The fixture list will not wait for the injured to recover.