Giovanni Manna didn’t hold back. Napoli’s sporting director, who has only been in the job for less than a year, held a press conference two days after the January transfer window shut.

Of course, the main topic of discussion revolved around Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s hasty exit from the club.

The Georgian departed midway through January for Paris Saint-Germain after seemingly being appeased to stay at the club last summer by Antonio Conte. Yet that appeasement only lasted for six months, as the player demanded to leave in the winter window, and got his wish. PSG paid in excess of €75m to let the winger leave for Ligue 1, but Manna was critical of the move.

“We thank Kvara for what he did in Naples, for what he gave to the city,’ he said.

“We tried to resolve a complicated situation in July, then again in November and December, but we were forced to sell him in this window because we found ourselves— I won’t say blackmailed, but almost. It was necessary to make this move.”

Kvaratskhelia, for his part, declared that he would “one day” explain his decision to walk away from a potential second Scudetto and from the side who catapulted him into the limelight after two-and-a-half years in Italy.

What the real truth is between the two parties no one knows — yet. But for now Napoli have to soldier on without a player who had been a key part of Conte’s starting XI.

Links to Alejandro Garnacho and Borussia Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi continued in the wake of Kvaratskhelia’s departure, yet neither arrived.

“We made a significant offer to Manchester United and got very close,” explained Manna about Garnacho. “However, to leave the Premier League in January, which is different from a summer move, he wanted to be financially satisfied, and that was something we couldn’t and didn’t want to do. 

“It also wouldn’t have been fair to the rest of the squad, where there is an established salary structure.”

As for Adeyemi, Manna revealed an approach had been made but the amount of convincing needed to bring the player to Serie A ultimately made the club look elsewhere.

“All the players who have joined since I arrived have strongly wanted to come to Napoli,” he added. 

“If I have to convince someone to come when Napoli is in this position, with one of the best coaches in the world, and playing this well—then they’re not the right fit for us.”

In the end, only Noah Okafor was signed from Milan amid groans from Napoli fans across the world, and no doubt fury from Conte inside Castel Volturno. Yet the argument can be made that Napoli made the right decision on failing to pull the trigger. 

For a club that runs an incredibly tight ship in terms of financial outlay, January is never the best time to go buying big. Moreover, with the world knowing they have €75m in spare change from the Kvaratskhelia sale, clubs can easily add 15-20 per cent to a player’s value, something Manna himself alluded to.

Garnacho would’ve been a tremendous signing and would’ve appealed to fans – another Argentine arriving in the city that Diego Maradona made his own. Yet the figures involved in taking him to Naples now would’ve been astronomical, something the club can’t afford in a year without Champions League football.

That said, there’s no reason why Napoli can’t take another run at Garnacho in the summer and, considering United’s own financial predicament, a shrewder deal could be struck. 

With the Partenopei out of the Coppa Italia and, as mentioned, no European football, the truth is the club don’t need to replace the Georgian wizard just yet. One game per-week means Conte doesn’t need the biggest squad in the league to win the title. 

We saw this during his first season at Juventus when, with no European commitments, Juve pipped a better Milan team to the title with a small squad.

David Neres is now taking a more central role in Napoli’s title tilt after being slowly introduced into the team at the beginning of the campaign. The Brazilian only started once in Serie A in the first half of the season, yet Kvaratskhelia’s departure has opened the door for the former Benfica winger. 

He’s started the last eight consecutive games, and his unpredictability echoes back to his predecessor’s first season in Italy, when opposing defenders couldn’t quite work him out.

With Neres on the left and Politano on the right, Conte has the wings covered in his 4-3-3 system. Of course, if either get injured then there would be a major problem, but playing once a week means the situation is manageable.

Conte, never a man to shy away from publicly rebuking his paymasters over a lack of signings down the years, will no doubt tolerate the situation for now. But if the serial winner is to stay at Napoli, assurances will need to be made about strengthening the squad in the summer.

Until then, what he has is more than enough, and the club’s balance sheet remains healthy.