Napoli midfielder André-Frank Zambo Anguissa and his teammates surrendered a two-goal lead at San Siro on Saturday, losing 3-2 to Inter in a result that leaves the Partenopei 13th in Serie A with three points from three matches.
The defeat stings precisely because Napoli had the game in hand. A 2-0 advantage dissolved into a 3-2 loss, with Inter completing a full comeback — the kind of reversal that exposes not just tactical fragility but the mental architecture of a squad still finding its shape under Massimiliano Allegri. Allegri himself acknowledged as much, stating that Napoli "need to improve" and that the result showed "football has no logic." The logic, though, is harder to dismiss when a team concedes three goals after leading by two.
For Anguissa, the match was the third of a season that has produced nothing in the goal or assist columns. His average rating of 6.21 across those three appearances reflects a player doing enough to stay on the pitch but not enough to tilt matches. An AI overall of 73 out of 100 suggests a midfielder of genuine quality — one capable of controlling tempo and winning the ball in transition — yet the numbers so far describe a man running in place while the team slips.
The context matters. With Scott McTominay absent for an extended period, Anguissa carries the midfield's organisational burden without the partner who sharpened his best work in recent seasons. That absence does not excuse the San Siro collapse, but it shapes how much Anguissa is being asked to do and how little margin for error he has when the defensive structure around him gives way.
Allegri's Napoli sit level on points with a record of one win and two defeats, having scored five and conceded five. The goal difference is flat; the trajectory is not. Three matches into a long season, the gap between what this squad can be and what it currently is remains the central question — and Anguissa, as the engine of the midfield, is where that question gets answered first.
The next weeks will demand more from him than containment.