Conte: ‘Napoli tried too hard to be pretty, gift to Torino’

Antonio Conte insists Napoli ‘did it all by ourselves’ in gifting Torino the 1-0 victory after a Billy Gilmour error. ‘We were too busy trying to be ‘pretty’ to score.’

The Partenopei were decimated by injuries going into this match, as Scott McTominay and Rasmus Hojlund were late additions to the absentee list, joining Stanislav Lobotka, Amir Rrahmani, Romelu Lukaku and Nikita Contini.

Matteo Politano and Alessandro Buongiorno were only fit to come off the bench late on, where Politano’s curler came off the upright and was turned in by Noa Lang in an offside position.

The only goal of the game was from ex-Napoli striker Giovanni Simeone, who pounced on a Gilmour error to doom his old club.

“We moved the ball well and created situations in the first half, but were too busy trying to be ‘pretty’ and basically we created their goal for them,” Conte told DAZN Italia.

“There was more energy after the break, but not enough. So congratulations to Torino, but the fact is we did it all ourselves today.”

This is the second defeat of the Serie A season for the reigning Champions of Italy, who had also lost 2-1 to AC Milan on September 28.

That is two losses in their last three, as many as in the previous 31 league fixtures, and Conte was again eager to point out they should not be considered Scudetto favourites.

“I had said at the start of the season that I know football well, so I assumed these were perfectly normal things to say. We are building something new here.

“We’ve got to work well and our season will depend on how the new arrivals grow and improve. We have a game every three days, we do not have time to work in training, so we’ve got to improve every time and have patience before seeing those improvements.”

Curiously, Torino’s only two victories were against joint leaders Roma and Napoli, confirming their status as giant-killers.

However, the Partenopei have shown serious problems defensively and conceded in each of their last seven competitive games.

“We conceded the goal that we created, so that was nothing to do with the defence,” insisted Conte, pinning the blame on Gilmour for that error.

“We’ve always got to work as a team, unfortunately today there was that ricochet that accidentally came off Gilmour – who had a great game overall – and it set up Simeone.

“Our football sees us constantly in the opposition half, so it’s natural there will be a few counter-attacks, and we need to get used to that.

“I don’t remember seeing defensive problems, we’ve got to start accepting there will be duels and we must do better.”