Napoli's lead lasts 15 minutes as Villarreal score twice in three

Napoli led after just eight minutes. Rrahmani first hit the crossbar, then reacted fastest to his own rebound to put Napoli 1-0 up. It was the only real moment of quality in a game that produced almost nothing else. Höjlund hit the post himself in the 22nd minute with a clean strike that deserved better. Two shots off the woodwork and one goal in the first 22 minutes were as good as it got for Napoli all night.

The numbers tell the story of a side that struggled to stay organised. Napoli committed 15 fouls to Villarreal's eight, and picked up three yellow cards — Giovane, De Bruyne, Di Lorenzo — to the home side's two (Mikautadze, Saliba). A team that fouls this often to contain an opponent is usually also a team struggling to build clean attacking play: Napoli's three shots on target, against Villarreal's four, fit the same pattern. This was not a side that tried to win and fell short. It was a side that stopped controlling the game after the first 20 minutes.

Head coach Allegri tried to change things with five substitutions between the 60th and 72nd minutes, sending on Spinazzola, Lang, Neres, Lobotka and Lucca in search of balance or attacking weight. It was not enough. In the 86th minute, another substitute, Oluwaseyi — on since the 63rd minute — was set up by Pérez to make it 3-1. A team that concedes again at the death, after reshuffling half its starting line-up, has not fixed the department that gave way. It has only changed who is exposed by the problem.

The question now is who answers for a performance like this. A team that starts strongly, takes the lead, then falls apart in three minutes is not a victim of bad luck — it is a problem of game management, and the bench is the first place to look. Napoli's next fixture belongs to a different competition: they return to Serie A on Saturday 17 October against Venezia. But what the Champions League has just shown needs fixing regardless of what comes next on the calendar.