Napoli didn’t have the best January transfer window, but Antonio Conte doesn’t want any excuses.
The Serie A leaders lost key winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG for €70million and were unable to land an adequate replacement.
Reports claimed they tried to get Noa Lang from PSV, while Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho and Fenerbahce’s Allan Saint-Maximin were also the subject of offers.
However, they ended up with Noah Okafor on loan from Milan instead, and given Conte‘s propensity to complain about transfer windows, even at the start of the current campaign, the Italian media pre-empted it.
Almost a decade ago at Juventus, Conte used the analogy of going to a €100 restaurant with €10, a comment that brought much derision given Juve’s financial superiority in Italy.
When it was put to Conte at his latest press conference, he said: “Why do you mention the one hundred euro restaurant? The question is annoying, let’s delete it and start over.
“Am I angry? I’ve read a lot of things. The truth is that I’m here to help Napoli grow and that the rest is all bulls***.”
Adding to his comments, Conte continued: “The joke about the one hundred euro restaurant was appropriate at the time. At that time we couldn’t spend what others could spend.
“Having said that, I don’t understand why this joke should be quoted to me today and make me appear as a person who asks, asks, asks.
“I’m in Napoli to do what I’ve always done in the past: to help the club grow. My past speaks clearly. This is my objective. Wherever I’ve been, the club has grown, from every point of view. This is my objective here too.
“What we need is not one more player, we need a Sports Centre that becomes our home. That becomes Napoli’s home. A youth sector.
“I’m not interested in sixty, seventy, eighty million for a player. Better to quote the All Blacks who say: leave the shirt you found better than when you arrived.”
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