The Serie A picture gets clearer - Inter, Juventus and Napoli...forget the rest

Paddy Agnew predicts that the race for Serie A title has been whittled down to a three-horse affair already after a key week in Italy.

Inter, Juventus and Napoli - as we come to the end of the calendar year, the picture at the top of Italian football has suddenly come into focus.

Even this week’s midweek Italian Cup games underline the point, namely that there are, at most, just the above three candidates for this season’s Serie A title.

So far, this has been a topsy-turvy season as illustrated by the fact that the Serie A leadership changed five times in the last seven fixture days whilst at different times this autumn we have had four different league leaders – Inter, Roma, Fiorentina and Napoli.

Yet, events of the last week would suggest that this period of broad scale uncertainty is over.

For a start, one side that so far has not led the table, reigning champions Juventus, underlined their continuing return to form with a 3-1 win over Fiorentina at the weekend, followed up by a 3-0 “derby” win over Torino in their midweek Italian Cup tie.

Even if a derby win over local rivals Torino is never a straightforward business, undoubtedly Juve’s win over title pretenders Fiorentina was even more impressive.

For a start, in the space of less than two months, Juventus have moved from the relegation zone to fourth place, six points behind leaders Inter, two behind both Fiorentina and Napoli and one ahead of Roma.

For a second, even if Fiorentina’s subtle passing game gave them a 62-38% possession domiance, it was the oh so concrete Juventus who found the back of the net three times, whilst Fiorentina’s only real shot on goal was the dramatic third minute penalty scored by Slovene Josip Ilicic.

Likewise, leaders Inter confirmed one more time that they are not out on top by accident. If Udinese pulled off a defensive hara-kiri in their 4-0 home loss to Inter at the weekend, there was no fluke about the manner in which an Inter team full of reserves beat Serie B side Cagliari 3-0 in the Cup.

Whatever happens in this weekend’s home tie with Lazio, Inter head into the New Year at the head of the posse, with an impressively strong squad, with an inspired coach in Roberto Mancini and, last but not least, with no “European” cup distractions. At this point, Inter have to be the clear favourites to win the title.

Napoli, too, used their Cup tie to show off their pretty feathers, defeating Verona 3-0 on Wednesday night. Here again, coach Maurizio Sarri fielded a largely reserve side but, as with Inter, the overall Napoli squad strength is such that it did not seem to matter.

To some extent, this win compensated for Napoli’s 0-0 draw with AS Roma last Sunday when the Neapolitans were unable to translate territorial and possession dominance into goals against an untypically dour and defensive Roma.

However, the combination of strong squad, inspired coach and current good form would suggest that Napoli go into the New Year with realistic expectations of further success.

Unlike Inter, Napoli have European commitments since they ran out dominant winners of their Europa League group with six straight wins and a 22-3 goal difference. A tough tie against Spanish club Villarreal now awaits them.

This last week, however, would suggest that at least one title contender, namely AS Roma, is fast dropping out of the race.

The “American Dream” at Roma is heading for an Eternal City Nightmare following perhaps the lowest point in the Roma season when Rudi Garcia’s side were eliminated on penalties from the Cup by Spezia, a Serie B team which currently sits in 11th place in Italy’s second division, 16 points behind leaders Crotone.

Roma’s current league standing, in fifth place, just seven points behind leaders Inter gives no indication of the club’s current crisis. Anyone who saw their game at the Olimpico, however, needs no clarification.

Against the background of a tiny crowd of just 7,000 in the 75,000 capacity Olympic Stadium, an obviously shaky Roma created very little during 120 minutes of play. Then when it came to the penalty shootout at the end of the 0-0 draw, even two of Roma’s most talented players, the Bosnians Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko, were so unsettled that they both missed their spot kicks.

It will not much help the Bosnians or any other Roma players that the Curva Sud fans on Wednesday issued a press release bemoaning this latest “shit performance” and calling on fans not to attend this Sunday’s home game with Genoa.

Meanwhile, club owner, American James Pallotta, sent out a tweet in which he apologised to the Roma fans for this latest debacle.

Garcia used a hardly fortuitous expression when he said after the game that he would push the Roma players “right to the death” to get their season back on track. To which social media wits replied immediately, suggesting that the Roma players have long since been showing little sign of life.

At this point, Garcia’s hold on the Roma job looks distinctly tenuous. If he does get the old heave-ho, he will doubtless reflect ruefully that he owes his decline and fall, after a spectacular, 10-match winning start, to two crushing Champions League defeats, 7-1 to Bayern Munich last season and 6-1 to Barcelona last month.

If Fiorentina, still second in the league four points behind Inter, are in nothing like the crisis currently engulfing Roma, they too nonetheless have just come through a couple of days when their seasonal objectives have been “redimensioned”.

A 1-0 defeat on Wednesday by Carpi in the Italian Cup has ruled them definitively out of one competition whilst it is tempting to conclude that the comprehensive nature of Juve’s 3-1 league win against them on Sunday night may well have ruled them out of another.

That remains to be seen. What is certain is that Fiorentina play a very good football but that they do not have the squad strength of Inter, Juventus or Napoli. In the long run, this could tell.

In the meantime, they have an exciting Europa League second round tie, against Tottenham Hotspur, awaiting them at the end of February. They eliminated Spurs last season and it is by no means impossible that they will do so again this season.

Until then, Buon Natale e Buon Anno A Tutti…