Napoli coach Conte pleased with revamped midfield in draw against Juventus - Carlos Volcano

Conte explained to DAZN that the inspiration for strengthening the midfield came on the final day of the transfer market when McTominay and Gilmour were added to the squad, along with the return of Folorunsho. He noted that this bolstered the midfield significantly, giving the team a strong group of players to work with.

“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.”