Massimiliano Allegri is not fooled by Napoli’s position in the Serie A table as Juventus look to end their long hoodoo at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Heading into Sunday’s clash in Naples the reigning champions are only eighth, with visitors Juve 17 points better off and pushing Inter Milan for top spot.

However, the Bianconeri have not taken three points from this away fixture since March 2019 and head coach Allegri knows Francesco Calzona’s men can be very dangerous on home turf.

“Juventus haven’t won in Naples for five years, it won’t be easy,” Allegri said at his Saturday press conference. “It will be a difficult match as they’re a good team and it’s strange to see them in that position in the table.

“We know that there are endless challenges at Napoli; we need to limit their strengths and try to be proactive when we have the ball.

“They’ve just won a tough match against Sassuolo, and with (Victor) Osimhen returning they’ve found their bite again.

“They’ve had their problems this year but the quality of their players has not changed.”

Juve have problems of their own. Their tense win against Frosinone last weekend was a first victory in five attempts and Allegri wants his men to come flying out of the traps in March.

“We’ve been through a difficult period, it wasn’t a good February. We must ensure that March is better than last month.

“Against Frosinone we conceded two avoidable goals and we must do better as a team when defending.

“Now the most beautiful but also more complicated period of the season begins; we must stay focused and know that picking up points becomes more difficult from now.

“Last year we came third, this year if we came second it would be a good result.”

Federico Chiesa and Danilo should be in contention to feature for Juve in Naples while Moise Kean and Mattia Perin will need longer to recover from injuries and Adrien Rabiot and Weston McKennie have outside chances to be involved.

It may not all be doom and gloom for Napoli, for whom Jens Cajuste and Cyril Ngonge are injury doubts, as they ran riot to win 6-1 at Sassuolo last weekend.

Matteo Politano feels the appointment of Calzona as Walter Mazzarri’s replacement on February 19 could be the catalyst for a late-season resurgence.

The Italy midfielder told sscnapoli.it: “He is giving us a lot of motivation but keeping us calm, too.

“Some of us have known him for years, we know how he works and we are totally on board with following his ideas.”

Serie A champions Napoli were dumped out of the Coppa Italia following a shock 4-0 defeat to Frosinone at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Napoli had been the favourites to reach the quarter-final stage, but second-half strikes from Enzo Barrenechea, Giuseppe Caso, a Walid Cheddira penalty and Abdou Harroui saw Frosinone record a famous victory.

Walter Mazzarri’s side have endured a turbulent defence of the Serie A championship they secured after a 33-year wait, falling 14 points adrift of leaders Inter Milan with just 16 matches played.

But after ending a three-game losing run to secure their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League place with a 2-0 win against Braga, and then recording a 2-1 victory against Cagliari in the league, Napoli will have expected to take a third win on the bounce against a Frosinone side who were making their debut in the round of 16.

Mazzari made nine changes to the side which beat Cagliari last weekend, while Frosinone boss Eusebio Di Francesco retained only three players from the side that lost at Lecce.

Giovanni Simeone appeared to have given Napoli the lead nine minutes before the interval only to see his goal disallowed by VAR after Jesper Lindstrom was adjudged to have handled the ball in the build-up.

After the interval, Napoli continued to probe for the opener – with Mario Rui’s free-kick striking the woodwork – but the Italian champions were suddenly on the back foot when Barrenechea headed home a corner shortly after the hour mark.

Frosinone then doubled their lead when Giovanni Di Lorenzo’s misplaced pass was intercepted by Caso, who made no mistake in slotting past Napoli goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini with 70 minutes gone.

The home supporters were left stunned as the six-time winners were suddenly facing up to another early exit from the Coppa Italia after their defeat at this stage of the competition by Cremonese last season.

And it would only get worse for Mazzarri’s men when Matias Soule was fouled by Di Lorenzo in the area with Cheddira, on loan from Napoli, scoring Frosinone’s third of the night from the penalty spot before Harroui netted a fourth deep into stoppage time.

It sealed Frosinone’s first ever win against Napoli, and a quarter-final against either Juventus or Salernitana.

Rudi Garcia is determined to hit AC Milan when they are down and relaunch Napoli’s Serie A title defence.

A rocky start to the season saw the Partenopei fall well short of expectations and critics of new head coach Garcia’s approach did not take long to make their voices heard.

But three league wins from four have thrust Napoli right back into contention and a home win against second-placed Milan, whose bubble has been burst by consecutive defeats to Juventus and Paris St Germain, could lift them to third.

“We have this home match against one of our direct rivals and it’s one we really want to win,” Garcia told reporters.

“There’s a good atmosphere in the camp. We’ve had a decent run of results but we know that if we really want to move up the table we need to keep winning back-to-back games.

“We want victory at home especially because we have the help of our fans after two wins on the road.”

Milan were one of the few sides to get the better of Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli last season, memorably winning 4-0 at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona as the hosts were trying to rubber-stamp their Scudetto.

“It will be a different game to last season,” Garcia said. “People keep saying this Napoli team is different to the one from last season so this game against Milan will be different too.”

Rossoneri boss Stefano Pioli, meanwhile, is demanding an instant response to last weekend’s San Siro reverse against Juve and a 3-0 humiliation at PSG in the Champions League on Wednesday.

He said at a press conference: “The team is hungry to turn things around.

“For the first time this season, we’ve lost two in a row in two big games and tomorrow we have another one.

“We’ll need to show that we have the quality to be a consistent side. We have to keep at it for 95 minutes against teams like this.

“We must live in the present; we’ve made mistakes and got results that we didn’t want. We have the chance in Naples to put in a better performance and show that we’re better.

“Garcia is a great coach. He had issues at the start – which is normal – but now they’re playing well and creating a lot.

“We need to be aware of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia because he can hurt you one-on-one. We’ll try to be alert.”