{"id":2160,"date":"2025-03-30T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2160"},"modified":"2025-03-30T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T00:00:09","slug":"napoli-still-believe-says-defiant-conte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2160","title":{"rendered":"Napoli still believe, says defiant Conte"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Napoli manager Antonio Conte struck a determined tone as he urged his side to keep believing in their Serie A title push, despite recent setbacks and a growing injury list. Inter Milan hold the advantage as the season enters its final stretch, three points clear of second-placed Napoli who host AC Milan on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;d be mad not to believe at this stage &#8211; nine games left, three points off the top. With all our strengths and flaws, we&#8217;re still there, in a position nobody expected, to be honest,&#8221; Conte told reporters on Saturday. &#8220;It&#8217;s our right to believe, after we give everything we&#8217;ve got and always leave the pitch with our shirts soaked in sweat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Only one team can win the Scudetto, but the Champions League places are in the balance too. We must always look forward and are only focused on first place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Napoli suffered bad luck in the recent international break, with several players getting injured.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Andre-Frank Anguissa had an adductor problem with Cameroon, he had two training sessions with us and we&#8217;re monitoring the situation carefully,&#8221; Conte said. &#8220;Noah Okafor (Switzerland) had a problem with his adductor too and was out for two days, he&#8217;s a player we need to get back into shape, but he&#8217;s struggling with that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Conte confirmed that Brazilian winger David Neres is available against Milan after recovering from a hamstring injury but Italian Leonardo Spinazzola is out with a knock.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Neres is fully recovered, he&#8217;s made great progress and he will definitely play &#8211; maybe not from the start, but he&#8217;ll feature for sure,&#8221; Conte said.<\/p>\n<p>Napoli have won only one of their last seven league matches. &#8220;I think we deserved better in recent weeks than our results would suggest. Unconsciously, results do affect the mentality of the players, and that is a mistake,&#8221; Conte said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a growth process, we need to recognise those moments we get wrong and work on them.&#8221; REUTERS<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Napoli manager Antonio Conte struck a determined tone as he urged his side to keep believing in their Serie A title push, despite recent setbacks and a growing injury list. Inter Milan hold the advantage as the season enters its final stretch, three points clear of second-placed Napoli who host AC Milan on Sunday. &#8220;We&#8217;d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}