15 Together, 0 Without: Napoli's Left Flank
With Meschini and Montes paired on the left, Napoli are 11-3-1 and scoring 2.6 a game; with either missing, they are 0-1-4 and have scored none.
Fifteen games together, eleven wins, three draws, one defeat. Five games without one of them, no wins, one draw, four defeats. That is the arithmetic of Napoli's left flank, and it is not a complicated sum.
Donaldo Meschini and Rubén Montes have started together on the left in fifteen matches this season. Napoli have taken 36 points from those games, scored 39 goals and conceded 16. That is 2.4 points a game, 2.6 scored and 1.1 conceded.
In the five matches where one of the pair has been missing, Napoli have taken one point from a possible fifteen. They have scored no goals at all. Not one. The same team, the same coach, the same system, but without the Brazilian's overlapping runs or the Spaniard's late arrivals at the back post, the attack has simply stopped.
The numbers are stark enough to remove any need for adjectives. Meschini, 32, has been at Napoli since 2054, a £12.5m signing from Fortaleza. Montes, also 32, arrived from Cádiz in 2059 for £14.3m. Neither is young, neither is flashy, but together they have become the most reliable supply line in Serie A.
This season they have been ever-present until the last fortnight, when the fixture list and the treatment room began to bite. The Italian Daily reported on 1 December that Napoli must cope without centre-back Ljubomir Sekulović for a month. The same paper has written about the left flank's heavy workload, and By the Numbers noted last month that with the pair together Napoli score 2.4 a game and lose almost nothing.
The evidence has only hardened since. The 15 games with both men on the left include a win over Bologna and a win over Rotherham, games in which the partnership produced three goals and an assist combined. The five without include a home defeat to Cádiz and a draw at Genoa, both against sides in the bottom half.
What makes the contrast so sharp is that the rest of the team has stayed largely intact. The same goalkeeper, the same back four, the same two central midfielders. But remove Meschini, and the left side loses its runner, the man who stretches play and creates space for others. Remove Montes, and it loses its finisher, the man who arrives late and scores the scrappy goals that decide tight games. Remove either, and Napoli lose everything.
The partnership has not been tested in Europe this season. Napoli face Chelsea on 12 December in the Champions League, and the English side will have noted the numbers. The Italian Daily's preview from 1 December asked how many points Chelsea will need in Naples. The answer, on current form, depends almost entirely on whether the left flank is intact.
There is no mystery here, no hidden stat that requires a degree to explain. Napoli with Meschini and Montes on the left are a team that scores and wins. Napoli without one of them are a team that does not score and does not win.
Fifteen games together, eleven wins. Five games without, no goals. The season so far, in one sentence.