I believe that it is time to be realistic about Napoli's true potential after that exceptional last season. Everyone thought that Napoli would be this new superpower in the Serie A that can dominate the league for many years to come, but the truth is that Napoli is a strong team, but they are not on the same level as Real Madrid or Manchester City. I agree that they are still underperforming and they are playing worse than they should, but believing that last season was a standard season for them is very far from the truth. They should be somewhere in the top six at least though. Being 7th and only 4 points ahead of 11th position in the table is a problem.
So, if you look at the remaining matches this season, of course there are still 9 matches remaining. Looking at Napoli's current position where they are in 7th place and it is very possible for them to return to the top 4 if they are able to sweep all their matches by winning. The level of change they have to make is to be able to close the season in a better ranking or at least they can take part in the European league if they fail to break into the top 4 rankings. Their decline was obvious in terms of unstable play and also some players having difficulty maintaining their best form.
Maybe next season Napoli will suffer worse fate if several important players in the team leave in the summer transfer window. Even though this will happen, management must be able to restrain the star players from staying with them. Because to maintain the best form they have to get support from their star players. It is reported that Osimhen will choose to leave and this is bad news for Napoli fans because he is one of the players who has contributed greatly to Napoli.
Yes but the problem with your argument is that Napoli now starts doing what they failed doing for the whole season and while it is not impossible that they
could do it, it is more likely that they would not do it. They have a tough schedule and if they now beging to win all their games against the strongest teams of the league, well then it is well deserved. But I doubt that anyone believes they can pull that off. They have never really had a serious winning streak this season and it would come as a big surprise if now the time has come and out of a sudden they can play their best level and maintain that level until the end of the season. They have been playing to erratically until this day and that's the more probable end result for them. They will remain erratic, win some, lose some and finish the season in the midfield somewhere.