Coach Luciano Spalletti on Tuesday said Napoli had won ‘important matches’ without Victor Osimhen as the club prepare for the Champions League quarter-final, first leg match against AC Milan after the Super Eagles striker failed to recover from a thigh injury.
Napoli’s star player and Serie A’s top scorer had been in a race against time to play in Wednesday’s fixture at the San Siro and was left out of the squad before Spalletti’s outfit travelled to Milan.
Napoli have been hammered at home by Milan and earned an unconvincing win at lowly Lecce since Osimhen picked up his injury on international duty.
But Spalletti pointed to his team winning every game when Osimhen was last injured in the autumn as evidence the absence of the 24-year-old will not hurt his side.
“The strength of a team is never just the sum of its various parts. It’s the sum of all its qualities, how they co-exist and the way the team works together.
“Our team up to now has shown it can play regardless of the formation picked at the beginning of the match… We’re at this point because we’ve won important matches without Osimhen, so I expect the same thing,” Spalletti told reporters.
Taking Osimhen’s place could be Italy’s Giacomo Raspadori who did participate with the rest of the squad in Tuesday’s training.
He is Napoli’s only fit striker as Italy’s champions-elect also announced on Tuesday that Giovanni Simeone had suffered a hamstring injury.