Benítez tips Napoli and Inter as Serie A favourites but urges patience

Rafa Benítez used an interview with Kiss Kiss Play Sport to put Napoli and Inter ahead of the rest in the title race. In the same conversation, he warned against rushing to conclusions. "For me it's a bit strange to see how many people are already talking," said the former Napoli head coach, referring to the verdicts piling up after only a handful of league games.

His analysis sharpened when he looked at the next two or three weeks. He had pointed Napoli towards a run of games against Fiorentina, Frosinone and Venezia — a lighter schedule than Roma's, who face Inter and Como. "In two or three weeks everything can change," he had said, explaining that a win at the Franchi (Fiorentina's ground) could push Napoli into the top four.

That match has already been played. On Sunday 20 September, at the Franchi, it finished 1-1: Gilmour opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, Jiménez replied in the 51st. The scenario Benítez had sketched did not happen. Napoli did not close the gap on the leading group and sit ninth with seven points from five games. The test he had picked out as the first real signal produced a draw, not the turning point he imagined.

The coach is not the issue

On the current coach, Benítez has no doubts: "He has experience, he knows what he has to do." For him, Napoli's problem is not the competence of the man in charge, but the time results need to arrive. It is a view that sits oddly with the mood around Allegri these days — contested by part of the fanbase for football judged too passive, in an already heated climate around press conferences. The confidence is coming from outside; inside the club, the conversation is about something else entirely.

In the interview, Benítez also looked back on his years at Napoli, recalling José Callejón: "He was the kind of player who could change pace and kept attacking the space behind the defence." Everyone knew what he was going to do, and still nobody could stop him: quality in the execution beat the predictability of the movement. Said now, and set against what has come out of the dressing room since Florence — Politano complaining about the missing cazzimma, a Neapolitan word for streetwise killer instinct, in front of goal, Allegri talking about balls lost in the final minute and a half — the comparison reads like an uncomfortable question. This Napoli has the predictability. The quality in executing it, for now, does not.

Benítez's own benchmark remains ten matches: five are already behind Napoli, five more before his judgement becomes readable. The first of the second five comes on 10 October at the Maradona, against Frosinone.