Napoli 4-3 Bodø/Glimt: McTominay rescues a side still short of balance

Napoli won their first points of this Champions League season on Tuesday night, beating Bodø/Glimt 4-3 at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. Matteo Politano scored after 54 seconds, Jens Petter Hauge equalised on 27 minutes, Scott McTominay restored the lead on 41, Andreas Helmersen levelled again on 62, McTominay struck his second on 75, Odin Bjørtuft's own goal on 88 made it 4-2, and Sondre Brunstad Fet pulled one back in the 90th minute plus four. It was a wonderful game of football, as the round-ups said, and it relieved pressure on Massimiliano Allegri. It did not answer the questions that preceded it.

Those questions were loud. Napoli had lost both of their opening Champions League fixtures, to Arsenal and Villarreal, and then lost 1-0 to bottom-of-the-table Venezia in Serie A on Saturday. Reports described a club in crisis. Allegri, before kick-off, urged his players to "never lose patience, because anxiety and haste lead to mistakes". The team sheet explained part of the anxiety: Alisson Santos joined Antonio Vergara, David Neres, Costantino Favasuli and Alessandro Buongiorno on the injury list, while Frank Anguissa made his first start since 5 September.

Look past the seven goals and the picture is stranger. Bodø/Glimt had 57 per cent of the ball to Napoli's 43, and an expected-goals figure of 2.66 to Napoli's 1.52. The visitors had five big chances to Napoli's three, and five corners to Napoli's two. By the raw numbers, the away side created more and better. Napoli scored four times from 1.52 expected goals — a goals-minus-xG figure of 2.48 in this match, against an average of 0.0 across their earlier 2026/27 matches in all competitions. That is one match, not a trend, but it is the match that just happened, and it is why the scoreline should be read as an escape rather than a statement.

This is also where the reporting and the numbers part company. The wire copy called it a great game and framed the win as pressure relieved; the underlying figures suggest a home side that was, for long spells, second best on its own pitch. Both can be true. Napoli were clinical and Bodø/Glimt were not, and the own goal on 88 minutes was the kind of break that has not been falling for Allegri's team.

McTominay's contribution deserves its own paragraph, with context. He missed a month after a surgical procedure in early September to treat an irregular heartbeat, returned here, scored his first two goals of the season and hit the post. That is a footballer back on the pitch and deciding a Champions League match, not a medical story. But it is also a midfielder, just back from heart surgery, bailing out a coach under pressure — and that is the part Napoli cannot keep relying on.

The wider form line is poor. Napoli's Serie A record under Allegri this season is three wins, one draw and three defeats from seven games, 1.43 points per game. Under Maurizio Sarri in 2017/18 it was 28 wins, seven draws and three defeats, 2.39 points per game over 38. The comparison is not a demand that Allegri reproduce a historic season; it is a measure of how far the current return sits from the club's recent benchmark of balance. The squad has turned over heavily since the summer, with Benoît Badiashile, Vanja Milinković-Savić, Rasmus Højlund, Giovane Nascimento and Alisson Santos arriving, and Luis Hasa, Walid Cheddira, Romelu Lukaku, Giovanni Simeone, Lorenzo Lucca and Eljif Elmas leaving. That turnover helps explain why the old balance has not returned, though seven league games is too small a sample to call it a trend.

Two other numbers from this match stand out against Napoli's earlier 2026/27 average. They took two corners here against an average of 7.4, and had 43 per cent possession against an average of 57.2. A team that usually controls territory did not control it, and won anyway. Whether that is a one-off against awkward opponents or the shape of Allegri's Napoli is a question the next matches will answer.

The win buys time. It does not buy balance.