Napoli revamp to 4-2-3-1?

By Football Italia staff

Napoli are planning another tactical revolution, moving to 4-2-3-1 so they can use Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne and Arkadiusz Milik.

The system would be similar to that of Max Allegri’s Juventus, who found a way to get all their attacking potential on the field simultaneously.

According to Il Roma, the experiments are beginning this summer and would be an alternative to Maurizio Sarri’s tried and tested 4-3-3.

The explosion of winger Mertens as a centre-forward was a stop-gap provision while Milik recovered from a torn ACL, but proved to be an unexpected success.

The little Belgian scored 34 goals with 15 assists in 46 competitive games this season.

With Milik now fully recovered, he’ll want to push into the starting XI too and that means a few adjustments for Sarri.

If he were to use the 4-2-3-1 system, it’d leave Marek Hamsik and another midfielder to protect the defence, while Insigne, Mertens and Jose Callejon fanned out behind Milik.

Napoli were already the most prolific side in Serie A this term, scoring 94 goals in 38 rounds, so this would only strengthen that side of their game.

However, it would also leave even less protection for an often over-exposed defence.

When Sarri first arrived at the Stadio San Paolo, he used a 4-3-1-2 formation with a trequartista, but changed it within a couple of weeks to better suit the players at his disposal.

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