"While Antonio Conte debuted a new line of complaint, putting aside a career's worth of laments about employers failing to back him in the transfer market to this time protest that Napoli had bought him too many new players, McTominay said simply: It's football. You have to take it on the chin. There's always another game coming quick, he continued."
"The timing was inauspicious. Napoli had lost their previous game, against Torino, as well. The defending champions were having a wobble, whereas Inter arrived on the back of seven consecutive wins in all competitions. As Conte would later put it: They were coming here to kill us off. An apt metaphor for the opening exchanges. Inter were hunting in packs, isolating Napoli's defenders as they sought to play out from the back."
"Frank Anguissa's artful flick released Giovanni Di Lorenzo into the area, but the latter player was put under pressure by Henrikh Mkhitaryan before being dispossessed by Francesco Acerbi. The referee, Maurizio Mariani, well positioned, saw no infringement. Play continued back up towards halfway. But the linesman Daniele Bindoni believed he had seen Mkhitaryan impede Di Lorenzo. Replays suggested this was, at best, six of one and half a dozen of the other, but Mariani accepted his assistant's"
Scott McTominay responded to Napoli's 6-2 Champions League defeat by urging acceptance and moving quickly to the next match. Antonio Conte protested that Napoli had bought too many new players. Four days after the PSV loss Napoli faced Inter, who had won seven consecutive matches. Inter pressed aggressively, isolating Napoli's defenders as they sought to play out from the back. Nicolo Barella dispossessed Leonardo Spinazzola and set up Lautaro Martinez for a first-time shot that required a save from Vanja Milinkovic-Savic. A contentious refereeing sequence followed when Frank Anguissa's flick released Giovanni Di Lorenzo but a linesman flagged an alleged impediment by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, which Maurizio Mariani accepted despite replays suggesting an even contest.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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