Napoli, Conte starts again from Hojlund, McTominay and Di Lorenzo against Fiorentina

If by chance you are looking for the Alexei Stakhanov of football, look no further than Napoli, there are at least three of them: they are men dedicated to any athletic effort, certainly bearable even playful, but stressful or at least exhausting. It may well be football 3.0, the one that forces you to play every other day, but then when the speedometer and the chronometer and even the taximeter go off, the Hamlet-like doubt assails you: is it possible? Possible that Giovanni Di Lorenzoalmost as a habit or tendency, he has put together 2721′giving up only the 70 minutes in Manchester due to expulsion, the match against Sporting due to disqualification and the match against Cagliari in the Italian Cup thanks to a very kind concession? In summary, and for clarity, the often substantial recoveries and appointments with the national team should be added to the playing time. But it may be enough, having never been replaced once. And it may be that Scott McTominaysince the day of his only absence (Turin, 18 October, three and a half months have passed, one might say a lifetime) he has added twenty-four seamlesslystarted on the bench with Lecce and Cagliari, and was replaced for just 8 minutes in Bologna? Happens! But there are also others here by Stachanov, you just need to read the numbers to realize that Rasmus Hojlund falls into the category: muscle problems in mid-late October, missed three matches (PSV, Torino and Inter) and then avoiding backing down, twenty-two appointments to which he arrived on time, a few rare substitutions (at least five of them came to him) and the awareness of having no changes, given that Lucca had now ended up on the sidelines and Lukaku was only able to appear again in Turin and last Wednesday.

Work

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By Lorenzo he does two jobs, generally on the right at full flank and now as a central defender, if he wanted there would be solutions – letting Beukema do what he knows and the captain to be himself – but Conte feels safer with this option and is going with it resolutely. The one who pushed himself beyond any reasonable limit is Scott McTominaywho is living an existence in which there is a risk – so to speak – of an identity crisis: he started as a left winger, to make the Fab Four coexist, then he also moved to the centre, then, with all the troubles that have happened to Napoli and which are no longer even counted, he started playing the midfielder, in certain phases even the playmaker, from the height of an intelligence that belongs to him and a transversal ability to be a midfielder. And ad Hojlund it was not possible to ask only for goals, but also the sacrifice of a “lukakization” that required expense.

and therefore

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Now that it’s finished in the Champions League, we need to secure the future, stay among the top four, see what will happen, if it will be possible to get close to Inter, and then dive into the Italian Cup match with Como, but this is another story that will be developed later. For now, and always having out Anguissa, De Bruyne, Gilmour, Mazzocchi, Neres, Rrahmani, Politano, and Milinkovic-Savicagainst Fiorentina at the Maradona, it is clearly a retouch for them, in a team that has changed almost nothing compared to last Wednesday against Chelsea, which seems to have to return as in Turin (Gutierrez on the right, in place of Spinazzola with respect to the Champions League and Di Lorenzo, with respect to nature) and which in any case does not ignore its captain, nor McTominay and even less Hojlund, even if now lend a hand there are also Young and Lukaku. The Stakhanovs do it for themselves, they do it for three. Better than working, they would say too.