After all the buildup and hype, Inter promptly started their Serie A season with a 1-0 loss away to Sassuolo. I get the pre-season optimism about Inter. It is Luciano Spalletti’s second season in charge, they are back in the Champions League and they’ve made some excellent signings to boot.

There’s also the fact that with both Milan clubs, there is a strong sense of nostalgia amongst their fans. This nostalgia and yearning for success is also prevalent in the media, which then collectively jumps on a narrative to promote the idea that success is around the corner. To an extent, this is understandable. Writing about Juve winning 10 successive Italian titles is boring after all.

However, the desire for a challenge at the top and promoting the chances of success at a historical club shouldn’t come at the expense of obvious football logic. Yes, this is Spalletti’s second season in charge, but Spalletti has never won Serie A. Yes, the likes of Nainggolan, Politano, Keita Balde and others are exciting signings, but do they have league-winning experience or pedigree? There seems to be a collective failure to recall that Inter scraped into the Champions League on the last day of last season. Surely the jump from finishing fourth by the tiniest of margins to challenging for the league is a bit premature.

Like many others, I too want Inter, and for that matter - Milan, to compete for honours. But let’s realize they are still a work in progress, and fighting a campaign on dual fronts with many players who will have their first taste of Champions League action won’t be easy.

In the mean, can we have some appreciation for Napoli and Roma? After all, these two clubs ran Juve really close in the past three years, racking up record points totals for teams finishing second. This past weekend, they had tricky assignments away from home and came away with three points despite not playing so well. Conventional wisdom would rightly dictate Juve have no peers in Italy. Yet if we are looking for some challengers, lets look at the two clubs that have done it recently on a consistent basis rather than the glorious history books. Let’s enjoy Napoli and Roma a little more, shall we?