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'We need a bigger squad' – Conte bemoans Napoli's lack of options
Antonio Conte is far from happy with the state of Napoli's squad, as the Serie A champions' injury crisis continues to mount.
Napoli need to build out their squad if they wish to compete on multiple fronts, so says Antonio Conte.
The Scudetto holders crashed out of the Champions League in midweek, losing 3-2 at home to Chelsea.
Conte's team bounced back by beating Serie A strugglers Fiorentina 2-1 at home, thanks to goals from Antonio Vergara and Miguel Gutierrez.
However, Napoli suffered a blow when Giovanni Di Lorenzo suffered a serious-looking knee injury midway through the first half.
Conte has been shorn of several key players for much of the season, with Romelu Lukaku having only just returned from injury, while Kevin De Bruyne is among the star names still out.
And Conte is far from happy with the club's planning when it comes to building a large enough squad to cope with so many matches.
"There's not much we can say, it's game upon game upon game, we have to keep using players who ought to be rested and yet can't, it leads to these situations," Conte told DAZN, as quoted by Football Italia.
"I tore my cruciate ligament. I know it's a traumatic injury. All these matches it kills the players, and kills football.
"Now there are restrictions on who you can have in the squad, and ours is even smaller because we don’t have many players from the youth academy, and the ones we do have want to go out on loan to play more regularly.
"If we have to play 60 games per year, we need a bigger squad; otherwise, it's suicide."
Full time#NapoliFiorentina 2-1
— Official SSC Napoli (@en_sscnapoli) January 31, 2026
#ForzaNapoliSempre pic.twitter.com/ZqeJ8VIbuE
Asked for an update on Di Lorenzo's injury, Conte said: "The feeling is he's done serious damage to his knee, and it's the cruciate ligament. It's nasty. You know full well what Di Lorenzo means for us.
"People say I complain, but we're doing anything but complaining, considering this is an infinite series of injuries. They are bad injuries too, not just muscular ones; these are serious.
"We are managing to plug the holes because these lads are doing extraordinary things. Once again, there weren't many options on the bench."
Napoli's victory took them up to third in Serie A.
They have now matched their longest unbeaten home streak in Serie A in the three-points-per-win era (22, previously set between August 2015 and September 2016, with Maurizio Sarri at the helm).
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