Napoli braced for tough trip to Milan
(Reuters) - Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri expects Saturday's trip to AC Milan to be a test of his depleted-side's maturity and mental toughness.
"San Siro (Milan's stadium) will be an important and ferocious testing ground, both for Napoli and for Milan," he told reporters on Friday.
The top four clubs in Serie A are separated by five points, with third-placed Napoli four adrift of leaders Juventus and clear of Milan, who are fifth, by the same margin.
Sarri, 58, saw no margin for error and warned that Napoli could expect a tough afternoon with injuries and absences forcing him to draft in defenders from the youth team for training sessions.
"Milan is a team that can create problems at any time, we will need to read the game well at all times," he said.
Napoli will carry out a late fitness check on Spanish centre back Raul Albiol, who has been nursing a fever, but Sarri said defender Lorenzo Tonelli had taken part in all of Friday's training session with the team.
"Unfortunately we have two defenders (Senegal's Kalidou Koulibaly and Algeria's Faouzi Ghoulam) competing in the Africa Cup of Nations and this is a further difficulty in defence," Sarri added.
(Reporting by Silvia Recchimuzzi in Gdynia, editing by Alan Baldwin and Pritha Sarkar)