Conte’s requests are about to be fulfilled by Napoli, who must sell before buying on the January transfer market. Here’s how De Laurentiis will please his coach in view of the championship sprint
In the summer they cost around sixty million between them. Now Napoli is working to get rid of him quickly so as to satisfy Antonio Conte and avoid the manager’s winter stomach ache. Lorenzo Lucca and Noa Lang are one foot out of the Italian champions’ project. They will end up abroad and with the money collected and saved the sporting director Manna will be able to move some players towards the entrance.
The words of Conte’s deputy, Cristian Stelliniin the post-match of the hard-fought victory against Sassuolo left no room for interpretation. Market? “If certain players are not used, we need changes and we have to insert different players. In midfield and in attack we are not changing much numerically. We don’t know when the others will return. But the club will make this assessment with the coach. We are in difficulty, because there are so many matches. Message to the club? No, I’m thinking with a clear mind and some interventions are planned and will have to be done.”
So, Lucca is first on the list of who can and should be sacrificed and Lang comes next. Conte’s choices have been so clear in recent weeks that there is no doubt. Indeed, Napoli preferred to field young players from the Primavera team rather than rely on the striker from Udinese, who was strongly wanted in the summer and paid 35 million euros.
Naples struggling with market limits: here’s what can happen
The zero-balance market to which De Laurentiis condemned himself, by not respecting the parameter of the expanded labor cost, did the rest. Where the two can go is taking shape as the weeks go by, with the indication for both that they must act quickly because the January of nine games in 27 days (same tour de force reserved for Inter and slightly more intense than those of Atalanta and Juventus) threatens to be decisive in the Scudetto and Champions League races. And even in Europe the Neapolitans cannot take risks.
For Lorenzo Lucca the hypothesis is that of the Premier League: Nottingham Forest on a costly loan (one million) with right of redemption set at 35. By removing the salary, there is some space to reinvest. The same will happen with Noah Lang which Galatasaray likes in Türkiye: onerous loan of 2 million euros and right of redemption at 30. The same goes for the salary. Once the transfer puzzle has been completed, Napoli will accelerate to give Conte what he needs to straighten out a season that has been up and down so far and not just due to injuries.
Lucca and Lang were signed in the summer precisely on the coach’s recommendation and were rejected by him without too many appeals. Now the relaunch of the club, but on the plate Conte will have to put in a second part of the championship that is up to par and a path in the Champions League that cannot stop at the first phase or even at the playoffs in February.
