Every Napoli brief The Playbook has printed, newest first — 16 editions so far. Plus the 4 Ledger calls this paper put in print on them, graded. The Archive runs two days behind the paper.
Napoli drew 1-1 with Lazio at the Maradona on 8 November, four days after a 4-1 Champions League defeat at FC Porto, and have now gone three games without a win. The run began with a 2-0 defeat at Juventus on 1 November. In the league Napoli are tenth on 15 points from 11 games, with four wins, three draws and four defeats. Scott McTominay leads the scoring with five goals in 11 appearances, and Kevin De Bruyne has four goals and two assists. The conceding is the worry: three went in at home to Roma on 24 October and four at Porto. Matteo Politano has three goals and four assists. Torino visit the Maradona on Saturday 21 November, with kick-off at 2:45 pm ET.
Napoli drew 1-1 with leaders Lazio at the Maradona on Sunday 8 November, ending a week of bad results. Before it they lost 0-2 at Juventus on Sunday 1 November and 1-4 at FC Porto in the Champions League on Wednesday 4 November, so the point against the league's best side is a floor rather than a recovery. They are 10th in Serie A on 15 points from 11 games, with Lazio on 29 at the top. Scott McTominay has 5 goals in 11 appearances, and Kevin De Bruyne has 4 goals and 2 assists, so the quality is there and the results are not. Torino are the next opponent, at the Maradona on Saturday 21 November, kick-off 2:45 PM ET. Torino are 11th on 14 points, one point behind Napoli in the table, which makes it the kind of home game a club in this position has to win to stop drifting.
Napoli's defensive shape has been porous across this congestion window — six goals conceded in three games, including the 0-2 away loss to Juventus at Allianz Stadium three days ago, where Luca Marianucci's red card in the 75th minute left the side exposed for Jérémie Boga's late finish. On balance, expect Porto to take at least a point from this tie at Estádio do Dragão. The constraint Napoli carry into Wednesday is not just the schedule — three fixtures in eight days — but the injury news reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport on 1 November: Kevin De Bruyne, who has contributed four goals and two assists across Serie A and the Champions League this season, picked up a knock in Turin, leaving the selection for Porto short of its most creative decision-maker. Scott McTominay, the other midfielder with four goals this season in those competitions, was singled out by journalist Francesco Marolda on TuttoNapoli as among the worst performers on the pitch against Juventus. With De Bruyne's availability in doubt and McTominay's form under scrutiny, the role that shapes Napoli's attack — the midfield runner who arrives late into the final third — goes to this fixture either undermanned or underperforming, and Porto, untracked in their own league table here, will expect to press that gap from kick-off at Estádio do Dragão.
# Napoli lose at Juventus before Champions League trip to Porto
Napoli's uneven season continued with a 2-0 defeat away to Juventus on Sunday, November 1. The result followed a 4-1 league victory at Monza and a 3-3 home draw with AS Roma. Napoli now travel to FC Porto on Wednesday, November 4, for a UEFA Champions League fixture.
The recent sequence has been high-scoring in several matches. Napoli beat Bodo/Glimt 4-3 at home in the Champions League on October 20, drew 3-3 with Roma on October 24 and defeated Monza 4-1 on October 28. But they also lost 1-0 away to Venezia on October 17 and 2-0 at Juventus. Across those five games, Napoli have two wins, one draw and two defeats.
The league table places Napoli eighth in Serie A with 14 points from ten matches. Juventus sit seventh with 17 points, three ahead after the head-to-head win.
Matteo Politano has three goals and four assists in 13 appearances across all competitions. Kevin De Bruyne has four goals and two assists in 13, while Scott McTominay has four goals in nine. Rasmus Højlund has three goals in 12 appearances. These are season contributions across competitions, not scorers assigned to the Juventus defeat.
The next match is away to Porto at Estádio do Dragão on November 4. Napoli's last listed Champions League game was the 4-3 win against Bodo/Glimt, a result that demonstrated attacking production but also three goals conceded. The Juventus defeat offers a contrasting scoreline in a different competition.
Kick-off against FC Porto is at 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 4.
Napoli have shown they can score four in consecutive fixtures across Europe and Serie A, but have also been shut out twice in their last five games. The challenge in Porto is to restore the attacking output while improving the defensive balance that has made several results difficult.
Napoli visit Juventus at the Allianz Stadium today in a meeting of two sides level on points. Napoli are seventh in Serie A with 14 points from 4 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses and a goal difference of +6, and Juventus are eighth on the same record with a goal difference of +1. Wednesday's 4-1 away win at Monza followed a 3-3 home draw with AS Roma and a 4-3 home win over Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League.
That is 11 goals scored and 7 conceded in three games, and the attack is spread around. Matteo Politano leads with 3 goals and 4 assists, Kevin De Bruyne has 4 goals and 2 assists, Scott McTominay has 4 goals in 8 appearances, and Rasmus Højlund has 3. The Guardian wrote last month of growing doubts about the squad and the manager's approach after a setback in Venice.
Juventus lost 0-2 at Genoa on Wednesday and have scored 11 league goals to Napoli's 17. A win in Turin would move Napoli clear of a direct rival.
Napoli's second half at Monza was the version of this team that the first half refused to be. Three goals in 24 second-half minutes — Matteo Politano, Rafa Marín, and Kevin De Bruyne all on the scoresheet — came after a first half in which Monza's Jay Robinson assisted the equaliser to make it 1-1, and multiple Italian outlets reported post-match that Napoli continued to show defensive vulnerability when defending deep. The 4-1 away win over Monza at U-Power Stadium confirms the attacking quality is there; Rasmus Højlund opened the scoring in the tenth minute and De Bruyne, now on three goals and two assists across Serie A and the Champions League this season, added the fourth with Noa Lang assisting. This paper called the Monza draw, and it missed — Napoli won it at a canter in the second period. Sunday's visit to Juventus at Allianz Stadium, with both sides level on 14 points and separated only by goal difference, will test whether the second-half shape that dismantled Monza holds against a side with identical league standing.
Scott McTominay now has 4 goals across Serie A and the Champions League this season in just 7 appearances, a rate that flatters a midfield still searching for a settled defensive shape — and Wednesday's trip to U-Power Stadium arrives with Napoli carrying injuries to Benoît Badiashile and Leonardo Spinazzola, per LiveScore, though one defender has been cleared to return. On balance, Napoli draw at Monza on Wednesday: the attacking output is real, but a back line under strain on the road, against a Monza side that has scored 15 goals across 8 league games, leaves little margin. The 3-3 home draw with AS Roma at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona three days ago — two Leonardo Balerdi headers conceded in the final quarter-hour, erasing what had been a two-goal lead — illustrated exactly how this Napoli shape leaks when the defensive line is pinned back in the closing stages. Per TuttoNapoli, Il Sole 24 Ore's Marco Bellinazzo has called the McTominay–Lobotka–Anguissa midfield block the equal of any in Italy when fit — the selection question Wednesday is whether that unit, deep into a three-fixtures-in-seven-days window, can still hold its shape for ninety minutes with rotation enforced at the back. Monza sit four points and five places below Napoli in the Serie A table, which makes this a winnable fixture in theory, but the congestion and the injury list are the conditions that will decide it.
Napoli's defending has been a conceded role all season — the question Saturday answered was how costly that would be at home against Roma. Scott McTominay's second of the night in the 83rd minute appeared to have settled it, but Leonardo Balerdi's header six minutes later level the match at 3-3, and Napoli dropped two points they needed. This paper called on 23 October that Roma would take at least a point at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, and it did. The consequence is 11 points from eight Serie A games — a record TuttoNapoli reports is Napoli's worst start at this stage of a season in sixteen years. McTominay now carries two goals across six appearances in Serie A and the Champions League combined, and Politano's assist for the second means each has contributed directly to both of Napoli's goals in the match, but the back line conceded three times in a game Napoli led twice. Wednesday at the U-Power Stadium against a Monza side on seven points from eight games is where the shape at the back must hold.
Roma arrive at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona having conceded just three goals across seven Serie A matches, a defensive record that frames Saturday's fixture as a genuine test of how much Napoli have reconstituted their shape after a bruising ten-day run. On balance, expect Roma to take at least a point — the evidence tilts their way, and this paper calls it a draw.
The 4-3 home win over Bodo/Glimt three days ago kept Napoli alive in Europe but also confirmed that goals are flowing in both directions: five scored and seven conceded across the three-game window tells you about a side with attacking intent and a back line still finding its arrangement. Roma, unbeaten in seven league fixtures, have built their season on exactly the kind of defensive solidity that punishes that kind of leakage. Kevin De Bruyne's three goals and two assists in Serie A and the Champions League combined remain the clearest creative thread Napoli own, and Matteo Politano's four combined goal contributions offer width, but the front line has not yet forced a settled shape from game to game. Per LiveScore, Giovane signalled belief this week — saying Napoli are strong and can win — though the standings frame the difficulty plainly: Roma sit seven points ahead in third, undefeated. The role that congestion plays in Saturday's selection, particularly who starts alongside Lobotka in a midfield asked to limit Roma's transition, is the condition the fixture will settle.
Roma have won five and drawn two in Serie A this season without losing — 17 points from seven games, with only three goals conceded, a record that makes Saturday's visit to Stadio Diego Armando Maradona the starkest test Napoli have faced at home this term. On balance, The Playbook predicts a Roma win; the evidence does not yet support calling Napoli the stronger side here.
The 4-3 home win over Bodo/Glimt two days ago was necessary, but the match also confirmed the defensive condition that has defined this congestion window: Napoli have conceded seven goals across their three most recent fixtures, two wins turned into close calls or defeats by an inability to hold a line under pressure. Kevin De Bruyne's three goals and two assists across Serie A and the Champions League this season make him the one player whose decisions regularly buy Napoli something in tight games, yet his influence cannot absorb a back line that keeps inviting opponents back into matches. Per TuttoNapoli, former Cagliari forward Jeda — who worked under Allegri — defended the manager from criticism after the Bodo/Glimt result but pointed to a lack of individual aggression in the defensive shape as the core problem, which is the honest framing: the role assignments are not producing the defensive reads the results demand. Yahoo Sports reported that Allegri could have two games to save his job, which means Saturday is not simply a league fixture — it is a decision-point for the club.
Roma's shape — five clean sheets woven into seven unbeaten matches, with a goal difference of plus 13 — will probe exactly the same space Villarreal and Venezia found first.
Napoli's midfield had been operating without its natural decision-maker — Stanislav Lobotka absent from the engine room is the condition that shaped both the 1-3 away loss to Villarreal and the defensive scramble that followed. The 4-3 home win over Bodo/Glimt last night resolved that specific question only partially: Napoli scored four, which this paper's call from 19 October anticipated, but conceded three doing it, a figure that points directly to the role left unfilled in front of the back line. Per Football Italia, Kevin De Bruyne — three goals and one assist across Serie A and the Champions League this season — is being repositioned into a freer role, which buys attacking output and costs the midfield its cover; the same piece carried the manager's own admission that the side is too fragile. TuttoNapoli reports Lobotka is expected to return to the regista role on Saturday against AS Roma at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, which is the selection decision the whole week turns on, because Roma arrive unbeaten in seven — five wins, two draws, 16 goals scored — and Napoli sit seven points behind them in the table. Whether Lobotka restored to that role changes the defensive shape enough to contain a Roma attack that has conceded only three all season is precisely what Saturday will settle.
Napoli's attack has had no settled shape across this congestion window — one goal across the last two away trips, including the 0-1 away loss to Venezia at Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, and a 1-3 away loss to Villarreal that confirmed the same problem in European company. Tuesday's home fixture against Bodo/Glimt at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona carries more weight than the table position alone suggests: per TuttoNapoli, only the upper Curve sections have sold out, with large portions of the ground still available — a visible measure of how far supporter confidence has fallen. The Playbook expects Napoli to win this one, narrowly. Kevin De Bruyne's three goals and one assist across Serie A and the Champions League this season make him the one player whose decision-making in tight spaces could unpick a Norwegian defensive shape, and the home conditions at least remove the travel variable that complicated both of the last two defeats. But the same selection question that went unanswered in Villarreal — whether the front three functions as a unit or as three individuals operating in parallel — will be settled, one way or the other, before the final whistle.
Venezia have not taken a single point from their opening six Serie A matches, conceding 16 goals in the process — and Napoli, on balance, win this one.
Frank Anguissa's return to the 22-man squad, confirmed per Football Italia and LiveScore, matters more as a shape decision than a selection headline: without him, Napoli's central midfield has lacked the physical presence to hold the ball under pressure and dictate the tempo from deep, a role Kevin De Bruyne — three goals and one assist across all competitions this season — is ill-suited to fill alone. De Bruyne's value lives in the final third; pairing him with a recovering midfield anchor is the arrangement that lets each do the work the other cannot. Whether Anguissa is fit enough to start or arrives as a second-half resource is the selection decision that most changes Napoli's shape tonight at Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo. Get Italian Football News reported a frosty dynamic between the manager and De Bruyne, a detail that introduces selection unpredictability without resolving it — but the goal contributions on the board suggest De Bruyne remains too consequential to leave out. Venezia's defensive record, 16 conceded and a goal difference of minus 11, suggests Napoli's front line will find space; Rasmus Højlund, with two goals from eight appearances, will be the reference point for those chances. The 1-3 away loss to Villarreal showed how quickly this squad concedes when the midfield shape opens gaps, and Venezia — with nothing yet to show from their season — will not supply the same quality of counter. Napoli win, and the shape Anguissa restores will be why.
Napoli's balance between the lines has been fragile all season, and the 1-3 away loss to Villarreal made the cost visible. Per TuttoNapoli, Corriere dello Sport's Ivan Zazzaroni argued that the squad lacks the athletic engine to hold a shape when a match turns against them, and journalist Angelo Forgione, also cited by TuttoNapoli, noted that after an error from Matteo Politano — who has one goal and one assist across Serie A and the Champions League this season — the team lost cohesion between its lines entirely. The Playbook predicts Napoli win at Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo on Saturday, narrowly, against a Venezia side that has conceded 16 goals in six Serie A fixtures without a single point. Kevin De Bruyne, with three goals and one assist across Serie A and the Champions League, is the mechanism Napoli need to function cleanly in the final third, and the reports of friction between him and the manager — per Get Italian Football News and LiveScore — are the detail that sharpens this fixture as a test of whether the role he occupies translates when the result demands it. Venezia, winless and goalless on points, offer the conditions for that question to be answered cleanly; whether Napoli's shape holds when they are asked to control rather than react is what Saturday settles.
Napoli have carried an unresolved role through the opening weeks of the season: a centre-forward position that neither Højlund nor Politano has fully claimed as their own. Tonight at Estadio de la Cerámica, the Champions League league phase demands an answer.
The Playbook predicts Napoli take at least a point from Villarreal on Tuesday — a draw is the likeliest shape, given the 3-0 home win over Frosinone on Saturday that restored confidence without settling the selection debate at the sharp end. Kevin De Bruyne leads the squad's combined Serie A and Champions League contributions this season with three goals and one assist across seven appearances, and it is his decision-making in the final third — not a fixed nine ahead of him — that will determine whether Napoli create enough on the road. Per Yahoo Sports, Scott McTominay was available to return after a period of absence, which would give the midfield more defensive cover in the moments Villarreal press and Napoli are forced to reshape. That role matters tonight. TuttoNapoli reported a view that Noa Lang suits this Napoli, while Lorenzo Lucca does not, and that a winter addition up front may yet be necessary — which only sharpens the question this fixture will answer about whether the current forwards can perform in European competition. The condition that existed before kickoff — a forward line without a settled No. 9 — is the one Estadio de la Cerámica will begin to settle.
Napoli enter Saturday with an attack that has never had one settled shape, and LiveScore reports Allegri plotting a tactical switch after an injury pile-up, a pattern that thins the options before Frosinone even arrive. Frosinone sit sixth on 10 points, scoring 1.80 a game and conceding 0.80, against Napoli's 1.40 and 1.20. Napoli hold 7.2 more points of possession (49.8% against 42.6%), but Frosinone put 5.60 shots on target a game to Napoli's 4.20, so territory has not become threat. That is the constraint, and selection is the decision taken against it. Højlund's 2 goals and De Bruyne's 1 goal and 1 assist across Serie A and the Champions League carry a shape that cannot absorb losing another body. The three recent games produced 4 goals scored and 4 conceded, a +0 balance, which says this side is level rather than improving. The Playbook expects Frosinone to take a point: a 1-1 draw, with Napoli's depth, not their quality, deciding whether it is more.