Nicola plays down Venezia win over Napoli as Allegri demands character

Davide Nicola did not celebrate Venezia's win over Napoli like a triumph. He described it almost as a gift.

On Adams, who scored Venezia's goal in the 49th minute, Nicola added that the striker "has incredible room for improvement" — a compliment that, coming from the man who has just beaten Napoli, says more about Allegri's side than about his own.

Allegri's injury puzzle

Allegri, for his part, had to answer for Alisson, who was out against Arsenal and then forced off again by a physical problem on the last shot of that match. "He'd been training for eight days, I couldn't have imagined he'd get injured again. I don't have a crystal ball," Allegri said, adding that "now we need to get him back — we're getting a lot of players back", a line that on its own shows how many names are missing right now.

On the rest, Allegri chose the line of togetherness. "I understand the mood, but now is the time to show pride and character. There's time to recover," he told Dazn, before admitting the real issue: "We've been making mistakes at the back since the start of the season. There are moments like this in football — worrying doesn't help."

Napoli made it easy for us. We're a quality side and we applied ourselves. But we might not have won it.

The two statements, placed side by side, don't sit well together. If Napoli have been making mistakes at the back since the start of the season, and the proof comes from an opponent who admits winning only because Napoli smoothed the way, then this isn't a question of mood to fix. It's a fragility that repeats game after game, from Adams's goal in the 49th minute to De Bruyne's missed penalty in the 68th. Napoli are ninth in the table, with 10 points from 7 games. Saying that worrying doesn't help, at this point, looks more like a communication choice than an analysis.