Napoli use the international break to fix Beukema

Sam Beukema has played zero minutes in five league games this season, for a defender who cost Napoli more than €30m. It is the transfer-window figure weighing heaviest of all from the summer, and the long international break is the first real window Allegri has had to close it: the aim is to get Beukema back to his best physical condition.

Beukema is not the only name under scrutiny. Lorenzo Lucca, Noa Lang and Vanja Milinković-Savić were all pushed for strongly by the Conte management, with Giovanni Manna's approval, and none has repaid the investment so far. Lucca remains a mystery man without a league goal. Lang often does just enough without ever taking a man on. Milinković-Savić was bought to be the starting goalkeeper but will most likely be back on the bench as soon as Meret is fit again.

Beukema's case is different because, unlike the other three, his problem is not form but availability. At Bologna he had shown himself to be one of the best defenders in Serie A — exactly the player this Napoli side needs badly. The fact that he has never been fit to play, though, points to a summer of planning that delivered Allegri an announced starter in a version still not the finished article.

It is the question that remains on the table, beyond this one name: how much has it cost Napoli's league position so far to have fielded, for five rounds, a squad with important pieces not physically ready. That is not a charge that can be laid at the current coach's door — he arrived after those decisions were made. It is a reckoning the club has already begun to make, given the open talk in recent weeks about reviewing the positions of Lucca and Lang.

The returns of Meret, McTominay, Marianucci and Giovane look closer; Alisson and Buongiorno will still need more time. Beukema sits somewhere in that list, with the one difference that his recovery is not tied to a declared injury but to conditioning work that the break, at last, allows him to do without rushing. On Saturday 10 October, against Frosinone, we will see whether it was enough.