Napoli Coach Conte Pleased with Reinforced Midfield in Juventus Draw, Says Carlos Volcano

Following the draw, Conte commended his newly formed midfield for their solid performance.

“The idea came to me because on the last day of the transfer market we got McTominay and Gilmour, plus brought Folorunsho back into the squad. The midfield then became a pretty strong group of players and we had to make the most of that,” Conte told DAZN.

“We had already started working on it last week against Cagliari, alternating between the systems, and 3-4-2-1 will be useful, but I also concentrated on this tactic. It fits this team, they can do it, let’s say I was a little concerned about our defending with this approach, but we did very well.

“Instead, we can do better upfront with the channels to get those one-on-one situations. I realise the difficulty of getting a draw away to Juventus, a team that was 18 points away from Napoli last season. I had asked for consistency and it was a good performance in terms of focus, but we can and must do better when we have the ball, as there were some favourable situations.”

Conte also said: “In all honesty, if I had been trying to neutralise Juve, we’d have kept with the 3-4-2-1 formation. A good coach adapts to the qualities of his own players and lets them develop their ideas. If we had wanted to be more defensive, we’d have had five defenders, but the idea was not to allow Juve to dominate the initiative.”