Napoli's patience with €35m Lucca starts to wear thin

Napoli paid €35m to sign Lorenzo Lucca from Udinese, and at the Maradona that fee is starting to look like a problem. The forward, who is from Piedmont and wears the number 20, has endured a difficult start to the season: uneven performances, little sharpness in front of goal, and a crowd that no longer hands out trust on credit.

Frustration surfaced on the bench too during the Bologna match. Head coach Allegri's irritation, already reported in recent days, stemmed from a ball lost on the counter-attack in the game's last action. It was not an isolated moment, but a snapshot of a coach-striker relationship that is struggling to click.

Allegri's work, and time running out

Since the pre-season retreat in Dimaro, Allegri has personally worked on Lucca's mentality and technique, giving him concrete responsibility to try to bring him on. It is a direct, hands-on effort that shows how much the club want to protect the outlay made in the summer. So far, though, the results have not followed on the pitch, and the gap between expectation and output is widening game by game.

That is the issue: Lucca was thrust into the spotlight with more responsibility than expected, in a city with little patience for prolonged grumbling about a player brought in as a ready-made leading man. If the shirt keeps feeling heavy rather than turning into an opportunity, the risk is that he closes up further instead of coming good.

The patience of the club and coaching staff is not unlimited. If there is no shift in temperament and end product in the coming weeks, the transfer window that reopens on 2 January could take Lucca away from Napoli — even on loan — to let him find minutes and calm elsewhere. First, though, there is Fiorentina away at the Franchi on Sunday 20 September: another test of whether the turnaround can still happen in Napoli colours.