Napoli play “beautiful football”, according to Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri, but “they’ve quickly learned to do the defensive side too”.
The two sides meet at the San Paolo tomorrow for what is being billed as an early Scudetto showdown.
In a reversal of recent seasons, Juve have scored more goals than anyone in Serie A, while the Partenopei have the best defence so far.
“Tomorrow we have to play a great game first and foremost,” Allegri said in his pre-match Press conference.
Napoli play “beautiful football”, according to Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri, but “they’ve quickly learned to do the defensive side too”.
The two sides meet at the San Paolo tomorrow for what is being billed as an early Scudetto showdown.
In a reversal of recent seasons, Juve have scored more goals than anyone in Serie A, while the Partenopei have the best defence so far.
“Tomorrow we have to play a great game first and foremost,” Allegri said in his pre-match Press conference.
“That matters above all to get the two results which suit us. A win would definitely be a fantastic leap forward, and we’d give a beautiful signal, but a draw would be another positive result.
“We start from the performance, tomorrow we need to put in a good performance from every point of view: technically, tactically, physically; because tomorrow will be a physical game.
“In these kind of games it’s the details that make the difference, so whoever makes fewer mistakes has more chance of bringing the result home.
“Does defence or attack matter more? In the end all that matters is who comes first, no team finishes top by chance.
“Napoli play beautiful football, and I’d say they’ve learned quickly to do the defensive side too which, among other things, has always been [Coach Maurizio] Sarri’s strength.
“Ever since his time at Sangiovannese his strength was the defensive phase.
“Now they’ve understood that to win leagues you need to have the best defence.
“Just look at the numbers, you can’t escape from that. Napoli are first, having conceded nine goals, Inter are second with 10, we’re third on 14 but there’s Roma with a match less so they could match us and – if I’m not mistaken – Roma have conceded nine goals.
“That’s what the league table tells you. I repeat, the last 10 seasons have always told you the same thing: the best defence wins the league.
“This year maybe we won’t have the best defence, but we hope to win all the same. Or maybe we’ll become the best defence, maybe we won’t concede many from here to the end.
“However, we know we play a Napoli side tomorrow who really are beautiful to watch, they play well and have been entertaining people when they play for the past three years – myself included.
"I first met Maurizio in 2003, so we've had 15 years together, and his strength has always been the defence.
"Napoli are a team that defend very well, and then after that it depends on the players you have.
"Napoli have players with features that other teams don't have, because they've got small players up-front and they're all quick.
"[Dries] Mertens is 1.70m – I don't know if he's 1.75m, but you know what I mean – while [Mario] Mandzukic is 1.90m.
"[Sami] Khedira is 1.85-1.87m, Jorginho is a bit shorter and he's 30kg less with different characteristics.
"So he [Sarri] is very good at exploting the characteristics of his players, which is exactly as it should be for a Coach.
"It's the same for [Lorenzo] Insigne, Insigne is a little bit different to [Gonzalo] Higuain. They have different players to the ones we have, so we need to exploit our own characteristics."
Allegri was then asked if he’s planning to play a back-three or a back-four tomorrow.
“They [the defence] are getting better, [Benedikt] Howedes is definitely one who’s better on the ball, with more quality. Barzagli can play with no worries.
“They used to say that the older you get, the deeper you go. Barzagli started with me at Pistoiese and played as a midfielder, fortunately then they put him at the back, Otherwise he wouldn’t have had a career, poor guy…
“Now he could play as the third centre-back, and even play a little behind the others. Then there’s Howedes, but at the same time there’s [Medhi] Benatia.
“Benatia has to be more convinced of the quality he has, he’s got two good feet but sometimes he loses his way.
“I don’t know if we’ll play three or four tomorrow. We’ll see, because I still haven’t decided who to play up-front. It depends on that, depending on who plays up-front, we’ll decide on who is behind them.
“There could be space for [Blaise] Matuidi, but I repeat: it depends on whether I have everyone available up-front.
“At the moment up-front we have [Juan] Cuadrado who hasn't trained much, [Federico] Bernardeschi who hasn’t trained much, Higuain who is a hand amputee…
“So at the moment the only ones who are fit are [Mario] Mandzukic, [Paulo] Dybala and Douglas Costa.
“I’ll see today, if I have more attackers available maybe we’ll play with more up-front, otherwise we’ll put one more behind.
“What absolutely won’t change is the attitude of the team.”