Napoli face must-win match vs. Chelsea to avoid UCL elimination

Napoli are on the brink of being eliminated from the Champions League as the troubled Italian club face Chelsea on Wednesday racked by a deep injury crisis and a faltering Serie A title defence.

Sat just inside the elimination zone on only eight points from seven matches after last week's miserable 1-1 draw at FC Copenhagen, Napoli must beat Chelsea to scrape a place in next month's play-offs.

That will be no easy task with the Blues, Antonio Conte's former club, needing a win to stay in the top eight and bag direct qualification for the last 16.

And Napoli come into the game still stinging from a 3-0 defeat at Juventus which left the Italian champions nine points behind current Serie A leaders Inter Milan.

Sunday's loss in Turin was a big slap in the face for Napoli and Juve icon Conte, who was full of praise for his players who have had to dig deep in the face of a host injuries.

"For us it (injuries) is something that we have to accept, it's a difficult situation which is not easy to manage. It's difficult for the staff and the players to continue with that rhythm," McTominay told reporters on Tuesday.

"But it's part of the game, you have to accept it, you have to turn up as often as you can for the ones that are ready and prepared to play. Tomorrow night the absolute maximum of our level of performance is going to be required."

Conte's bid to become the first Napoli coach to win back-to-back Serie A titles has been hampered by physical problems in his squad right from the start of the season. 

It started with Romelu Lukaku suffering a hamstring injury in pre-season which kept him out of action until the 79th minute of Sunday's loss.

Napoli's 'emergency'

Lukaku replaced academy graduate Antonio Vergara who played in place of Italy international Matteo Politano, while new signing Giovane made his debut as a substitute, with Conte later saying he hadn't even seen him train.

Conte has also lost giant goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic to a hamstring knock while winger David Neres flew to London for ankle surgery on Monday which will likely keep the Brazilian out until April.

Kevin De Bruyne has been out since October and won't be back until the Spring after surgery on his right hamstring, while another key midfielder in Andre-Frank Anguissa was supposed to be back on Sunday from another hamstring injury but was left out due to back problems.

"I challenge anyone to find me a team which has had all of these problems, because we're still only halfway through the season," Conte told reporters on Tuesday.

"We started with the idea that the emergency would finish, the problem is that the emergency hasn't finished, in fact it's got worse.

The boys are doing something incredible which is going unnoticed because of where we are in the league and results. I honestly believe that if we started the season a month ago saying that this was the squad for the season, you'd say 'you're going nowhere'.

"But we're  still here, fighting and with our heads held high."

The only good news for Conte is the return of Lukaku who has replaced De Bruyne in Napoli's European squad, giving the Belgium striker the chance to get back at Chelsea where he failed so miserably four years ago.

Last season 11 points was enough to avoid elimination so a win will almost certainly get Napoli through and provide some relief to a creaking team.