Napoli spotted Doumbia early and never bid

Good evening, Napoli supporters, this is Napoli Tonight for Friday 13 November.

Issa Doumbia. Napoli knew the name early and did nothing with it. His agent, Cheikh Sadibou, says sporting director Giovanni Manna followed him from his Juventus Under-23 days. Then came the catch, in the agent's own words: "A chat is one thing, making an offer is another. And to make an offer, you always need the owner's go-ahead." Sporting made the offer. Doumbia now starts every game in Portugal, and his contract has an eighty million euro release clause from July 2027. It is fair to ask how many other chats never became offers.

That matters, because January is coming and the papers cannot agree on who goes. Il Mattino says Napoli would not stand in the way of a De Bruyne exit in January. The Corriere dello Sport says the opposite. Sky Sport says Napoli turned down up to thirty million euros for Alisson Santos. Il Mattino lists him as a possible sale. On Lang, three papers tell three different stories.

Our view is this. When the papers split like that, it tells us that nobody outside the club can see what kind of team it wants to rebuild. And if half the squad is up for discussion in November, whoever built it in August should answer for it as much as the coach.

David Neres is the clearest case. He returns to partial training tomorrow and is expected back for Torino. Yet the club is considering a sale, because injuries have stopped him too often. Nineteen Napoli players have had physical problems this season, almost eighty per cent of the squad. Selling the ones who get hurt looks more like hiding the problem than solving it.

Up front, Manna is considering Rayo Vallecano's Sergio Camello as a replacement for Lucca. He has seven goals in eleven games and is valued at around ten million euros.

Napoli are tenth on fifteen points, nine off fourth place. Torino come to the Maradona on Saturday 21 November, at eight forty-five in the evening CET, seven forty-five in the UK.

That's Napoli Tonight for tonight. Every story, in full, at arenarete dot com slash napoli slash e n.