Conte seeks to haunt Chelsea in make-or-break Champions League clash

Napoli face Chelsea in a must-win match for both sides on the final UEFA Champions League league-phase game at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Wednesday night.

Antonio Conte’s men suffered a 3-0 heavy defeat to Juventus in Serie A at the weekend. The Azzurri were held to a 1-1 stalemate at Copenhagen last time out in the Champions League.

Chelsea secured a comfortable 3-1 victory over London rivals Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Sunday.

Liam Rosenior also guided the Blues to a narrow 1-0 victory over Pafos in their last Champions League outing.

Match preview

The only previous meetings between Napoli and Chelsea came in the 2011/12 Champions League, with the Blues eliminating the Italian side in the Round of 16 in that edition (5-4 on aggregate – lost 3-1 away before winning 4-1 at home in the second leg).

The Blues have only won one of their last nine Champions League away games against Italian sides (D1 L7) – a 2-0 victory at Milan in October 2022 – while losing six of the last seven. The most recent of those came this season, losing at Atalanta on MD6, despite having taken the lead (2-1 defeat).

Napoli manager Antonio Conte has only won one of his five games against former club Chelsea since leaving his post there (D1 L3), although that one victory did come in his most recent game against them (2-0 win in February 2023 in the Premier League, in charge of Tottenham).

The Azzurri have lost just one of their last 20 home Champions League matches (W12 D7), a 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid in October 2023. Overall they’ve lost just 12% of their home games (4/33), the third lowest ratio of any team to play 20+ home games in the competition since 1992/93.

Chelsea have scored in each of their last 20 games in major European competitions; their longest ever run. The last side to keep a clean sheet against them was Real Madrid in April 2023, in a 2-0 defeat in the Champions League.

Napoli have won just one of their last 10 Champions League matches against sides from one of Europe’s big five leagues (D4 L5), a 1-0 away win at 1. FC Union Berlin in October 2023.

Napoli’s Scott McTominay has scored four goals in his last five Champions League appearances. The last Scotsman to score five goals in a single European Cup season was Mo Johnston in 1990/91 for Rangers, and the last for a non-Scottish club was John Wark for Liverpool in 1984/85.

All six goals scored by Napoli players in this season’s Champions League have been netted by former Man Utd duo Rasmus Højlund (2) and Scott McTominay (4). Højlund never scored against Chelsea in four appearances, but McTominay scored a brace in a 2-1 Man Utd win in his last start against the Blues in December 2023.

Team news

Napoli

Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, Kevin De Bruyne, Frank Anguissa, Billy Gilmour, David Neres, Amir Rrahmani and Matteo Politano are sidelined with injuries.

Chelsea

Romeo Lavia has returned to the Blues’ training, but he’s not expected to make an appearance.

Filip Jorgensen, Dario Essugo, Tosin Adarabioyo and Levi Colwill are unavailable due to injuries.

Predicted line-ups

Napoli: Alex Meret, Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Alessandro Buongiorno, Juan Jesus, Miguel Gutiérrez, Stanislav Lobotka, Scott McTominay, Mathías Olivera, Antonio Vergara, Eljif Elmas, Rasmus Højlund.

Chelsea: Robert Sánchez, Reece James, Trevoh Chalobah, Benoît Badiashile, Marc Cucurella, Moisés Caicedo, Enzo Fernández, Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto, Alejandro Garnacho, João Pedro.