Milan, Inter and Juventus, the keys to the run-up to Napoli- Corriere.it

Hunt for Naples. The countdown has started, the recovery is getting closer and the pursuers are preparing to re-attack the leaders, almost two months after the stop which in mid-November froze every issue to make room for the unprecedented Autumn World Cup. Eight points is a lot, but at the same time it’s not enough either to celebrate or to give up. Not with 23 games still to play, which will be giving away the beauty of 69 points. Too many. One thing for sure, actually two. The first is that January will be a key month, given that Spalletti and his team will have three direct clashes with Inter, Juve and Roma to demonstrate that the long break hasn’t affected the mechanisms that have allowed them to dominate the season so far. The other that the pursuers will absolutely need to recover those missed so farif they want to try and take advantage of any stops by Napoli to reopen the Scudetto race.

The impression that
in fact, the repair market will bring who knows what revolutions
, money is what it is, so don’t expect big hits. That’s why finding lost goals risks being the only chance for those chasing. At Milan, to say, in the first three months of the season damned De Ketelaere missed. Bought for 35 million, almost the entire market budget, he played 18 games without scoring a single goal. Then slowly but surely (and rightly so) ending up on the bench. Carletto must be waited for, as was done with Leao and Tonali, but now that he makes a move: Milan Milan, expectations are inevitable, so now it’s his turn to accelerate. Pioli considers deploying him as first striker. But the impression that the boy needs a mental change, even before a tactical one.

For sure
Romelu Lukaku’s was not a problem of acclimatization
, that Milan and Inter knew them very well, when he chose to return in the summer. From the injuries that allowed him to play only 5 games with the Nerazzurri up to the World Cup disappointment, marked by his mistakes and tears in the decisive match against Croatia, the Belgian must absolutely move on to chase away the ghosts: Inzaghi needs his goals to climb back up in the standings, also because sooner or later Lautaro could suffer from fatigue from the feat in Qatar.

Mourinho is also anxiously waiting for someone, Tammy Abraham, who lived a split 2022 in half: in the first part he dragged Roma to victory in the Conference, in the second he scored the meager 3 goals in Serie A. Becoming a father, he announced it: who knows it won’t help.

Who on the other hand doesn’t have to wake up but only heal and get back in shape Ciro Immobile, who hasn’t scored in the league since 10 October, an eternity for someone like him who has won the top scorer twice in the last three seasons. Lazio is growing, fourth place confirms this, but Sarri needs his striker to capitalize on the enormous amount of play. The muscular troubles are behind us, in Lecce, on the 4th, he will be there.

Allegri’s comeback plan passes instead from Paul Pogba, Federico Chiesa and Angel Di Maria. The Frenchman will need to wait mid-late January, while the Italian will already be the protagonist in Cremona at the second half if he doesn’t eat too much panettone, as his coach smiled. Together with the Argentine world champion, who in the first part of the season was managed precisely in view of the World Cup, they could change the face of Juventus and go back to thinking big. Because eight points are a lot, but not enough, not yet.