Antonio Conte has been blown away by the resilience displayed by his Napoli team as they continue to battle a huge list of absences.

Rasmus Hojlund was a late withdrawal ahead of Monday's clash with AC Milan.

It meant January acquisition Giovane made his first start for Napoli in an unfamiliar striker role, with Romelu Lukaku also out.

Yet Napoli got the job done, with substitute Matteo Politano scoring in the 79th minute to seal a 1-0 victory, sending the reigning champions above Milan and into second place in Serie A.

Conte told DAZN Italia: "This victory gives us a great deal of enthusiasm and confidence, because we must never forget that if we are up there in second place, it is thanks to those lads who covered for all the absences we dealt with this season.

"Hojlund was missing today, but we haven't had Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Amir Rrahmani, David Neres and Antonio Vergara for a while either, so that's five players who are almost all regular starters. It's extraordinary that the team has stayed up there despite these absences.

"Any other side would’ve fallen apart and lost its fight. It's inevitable that the more players we get fit, the more we have choices and the more we can rotate to keep everyone fresh."

Napoli are seven points back from leaders Inter with seven games remaining. According to Opta's supercomputer, Conte's team have just a 4.9% chance of retaining the title.

"Now we have to keep going, because there are seven rounds to go and we took an important step towards the Champions League, which is our objective," said Conte.

"If Milan can say the Champions League is their target, why shouldn't it be Napoli’s? Juventus say the same too, Napoli won the Supercoppa, but people seem to expect even more from us than these clubs.

"Now we must try to stay up there and defend this position. We know Inter deserve to be first in the table, we are there, and must focus on ourselves."