Conte warns Napoli ´far away´ from Scudetto despite strong Serie A start

Antonio Conte warned against complacency after Napoli ended a Serie A matchday top of the table for the first time since they captured the Scudetto in 2022-23.

Goals from Matteo Politano and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia helped Napoli to a 2-0 home win over Monza on Sunday, taking them to 13 points from their first six league games under Conte.

Having gone through three head coaches as they finished a dismal 10th as defending champions last season, Napoli have now kept as many Serie A clean sheets under Conte (four) as they managed in their previous 31 outings in the competition.

They have also managed three successive shutouts for the first time since February 2023 and are guaranteed to end matchday six at the summit of Serie A.

Conte, however, says there is much work to be done and has warned the Partenopei’s lack of European football, while allowing them more rest time, denies them a chance to build momentum.

“There is an advantage and a disadvantage of not playing in Europe – the advantage is that you can train the team all week, the disadvantage is that the squad is not as competitive as those that do play in Europe,” Conte told DAZN.

“Having said that, we continue to work, we do it to make people’s dreams come true but the reality is that we are too far away to make flights of fancy.

“We need to sweat every game, like we did today, and grow.”

Having led Juventus, Chelsea and Inter to league titles soon after taking the reins, Conte knows there are grand expectations around his Napoli tenure but says they are in the early stages of a major rebuild.

“Not even three months have passed, the president [Aurelio De Laurentiis] is the first to have spoken of a total reconstruction,” he added.

“[Victor] Osimhen and [Piotr] Zielinski left while I hear people talking about certain things.

“I know that there are high expectations for me because I have done important things. Let’s let the fans dream, but I have to keep my feet on the ground.

“I hear people talking who know nothing about Scudettos. We have to speed up to get Napoli where they deserve to be, which is not in 10th place.”