‘I’ll have to play’ – Antonio Conte fumes as Scott McTominay suffers injury after bizarre incident

Scott McTominay worsened Napoli’s injury crisis to leave Antonio Conte raging, but Rasmas Hojlund kept the club’s title dreams alive.

Scotland’s talisman scored his 10th goal of the season in a 3-2 win at Daniele De Rossi’s Genoa before being forced off at half-time.

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Napoli came into the contest looking to move one point adrift of AC Milan in second in their long-shot bid to retain the Scudetto.

Following damaging back-to-back defeats, including a 3-0 loss to Juventus, Conte’s men then crashed out of Europe three days later.

Napoli steadied the ship after losing at home to Chelsea by beating Fiorentina, with an opportunity to build momentum on Saturday.

An early penalty from Ruslan Malinovskyi saw the visitors fall behind, but two goals within a minute flipped the match on its head.

Hojlund equalised in the 20th minute, before inadvertently turning provider for his ex-Manchester United teammate, McTominay.

McTominay suffers injury after scoring

The Dane handed McTominay the ‘magic spray’ from Napoli’s medical staff, so that his teammate would not have to exit the pitch.

And the Scott duly took full advantage of the injury loophole by scoring himself with a stunning strike from range a minute later.

However, McTominay was unable to shake off his injury and soon signalled to the Napoli bench that he needed to come off.

Conte was said to have turned to his bench and said, “I’ll have to play in a minute!” due to his squad’s increasingly bloated absentee list.

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McTominay battled through until half-time before being replaced by Brazilian striker Giovane.

Napoli are already without long-term absentees Kevin De Bruyne, Frank Anguissa and Billy Gilmour prior to McTominay’s latest issue.

Gli Azzurri will hope the latter’s problem is minor, with wingers Matteo Politano and David Neres also ruled out.

Without talisman McTominay, Napoli were pegged back just inside the hour mark after Lorenzo Colombo equalised for the home side.

Napoli were then given a mountain to climb when Juan Jesus was sent off late, but Hojlund notched a 95th-minute penalty winner.

The visitors are now six points behind runaway Serie A leaders Inter Milan, who can stretch the gap further at Sassuolo on Sunday.