Napoli's coach Antonio Conte appeared in a press statement after the loss against Milan 2-1 in the fifth round of the Italian league at San Siro.

The coach said in his remarks: "It is unfortunate that we conceded an early goal; the entire team could have handled the situation better in both cases. Playing at San Siro while being a goal down after 4 minutes is not easy."

He added: "I liked the team's performance in the first half; we pressed Milan high and created scoring opportunities, but there is work to be done because we have been conceding too many goals lately. If we look at the goals from Pisa and the two goals today, these are numbers that accumulate."

He emphasized: "Defense has always been our strongest point, so we need to keep working and improving. However, coming here with this character against a strong team like Milan at San Siro gives us a positive feeling, while at the same time we realize the need to improve in some aspects."

He continued: "This is our first defeat in five rounds, and it came against a very strong team on a tough pitch. It is normal for them to score two goals, but the players know that we must be better as a team. I would like to emphasize that it is about the focus of the entire team because we made things difficult for ourselves when we fell behind 2-0."

Regarding his decision to play Marianoucci and Gutierrez despite them not having played before with the team, Conte explained: "Marianoucci is a player contracted from Napoli, and he is part of the team. He trains well and deserves this opportunity; he has great potential and has proven he can be part of the group."

He added: "Gutierrez has not played for several months, but Pasquale Matsutchi was not fully fit physically, so we had to take the risk."

On De Bruyne's dissatisfaction after being substituted, along with the substitutions of Hojlund and McTominay, he concluded: "I wanted to introduce fresh blood because Milan was closing spaces, and we needed something different. I believe those were the right changes at that time."