Lazio and Napoli lose form

What do Lazio and Napoli have in common these days?

Inconsistency, I suppose. Up to a few weeks ago, both blue-clad outfits were bracketed among the top teams in the Serie A. However, lately Lazio and Napoli fell by the wayside, managing only a meagre tally of points to slip out of contention, at least for the fourth place in the final standings.

Lazio were one of the most refreshing sides this season.

Again, club supremo Claudio Lotito silenced his critics and assembled a competitive team despite a restricted financial budget. Coach Delio Rossi did the rest as he brought the best out of his players and Lazio's superb first round results came as no surprise.

But the same cannot be said of their performances of late.

Bar Sunday's unlucky defeat in Florence, Lazio have shown very little enthusiasm since holding Juventus to a 1-1 draw on the last day of the first round.

Successive defeats at the hands of Cagliari (1-4), Sampdoria (1-3) and Milan (0-3) preceded the setback in Tuscany as Lazio lost consistency and look a blurred copy of the team that took the Serie A by storm in the first round.

Earlier this week, the shrewd Lotito was quoted as saying that Rossi and goalkeeper Juan Pablo Carrizo, who has recently been dropped in favour of Fernando Muslera, are to blame for the team's dark patch and the temptation is there to change coach if poor results persist.

Rossi has done an immensely good job ever since joining Lazio from Atalanta in 2005. He took the club to dizzy heights two years ago with an unexpected third place finish.

This season, Rossi's major problem has been the lack of equilibrium in the team. With Pasquale Foggia, Mourad Meghni, Mauro Zarate, Tommaso Rocchi, Goran Pandev and Stefano Mauri all at his disposal, it has been a real headache for the coach to select his starting line-up.

Lately, there were games in which Rossi opted to deploy an attack-minded side with Rocchi, Zarate and Pandev up front and Mauri sitting just behind. But, the results proved Rossi wrong.

On Sunday, Lazio did not deserve to leave Florence empty-handed despite being reduced to 10 men from as early as the 18th minute.

That game, however, may signify the beginning of a positive run for the Sky Blues, thus quashing rumours that Rossi's days in the capital were numbered.

If Lazio seem to be coming out of the tunnel, the same cannot be said of Napoli.

Edy Reja's side suffered their seventh consecutive away setback on Sunday as they went down to Palermo 2-1. From their last five outings, Napoli only managed a 2-2 home draw with Udinese, a game they were leading 2-0.

Like Lazio, they have also lost their early-season form.

Coppa fatigue

On Sunday, Napoli were already 0-2 down by the 14th minute. The Southerners were never really in the game as in his comments Reja owed Napoli's opaque display to fatigue emanating from their Coppa Italia quarter-final upset to Juventus four days before.

Many reckon that Lazio and Napoli also have another feature in common... a lack of strength-in-depth.

Rossi and Reja cannot count on reserves of quality and the moment some of their key players lose form, the whole team suffers.

However, nothing is yet lost. Lazio have a Coppa Italia semi-final against Juventus coming up next month, albeit their showing in the Serie A is the appropriate yardstick to measure progress.

Napoli, currently eighth in the standings and three points above Lazio, have to overcome their away shyness which hindered the team all season.

They have enough potential to do better but only if they go back to basics and start showing desire and passion to prove the pundits wrong.

Serie A statistics

1 point collected by struggling Lazio from the last 15 at stake. On Sunday, Delio Rossi's side played their best game in recent weeks but still left Florence empty-handed as they were edged by Fiorentina 1-0. Thanks to this win (their third in a row) the Viola have leapfrogged Genoa in fourth place. Udinese continued to show signs of progress as they overcame Bologna at home thanks to an Alexis Sanchez last-gasp goal. This was Bologna's third defeat in their last four outings. Udinese have now collected seven points from their last three games.

1st defeat for Cagliari after four straight wins and two draws as on Sunday the Sardinians were floored by Atalanta at home. This was only the visitors' second away success of the term. Napoli continued to fall further off the pace as they were beaten 2-1 by Palermo in Sicily. Palermo's fifth straight home win coincided with Napoli's fifth winless game in a row.

4th straight draw (vs Lecce 3-3, Reggina 0-0, Inter 1-1 and Chievo 1-1) for strugglers Torino as they threw away a 1-0 lead to share the spoils with Chievo in a basement clash. This was the first drawn result between these two sides since March 10, 2002 (2-2). Thanks to this result, Chievo have extended their unbeaten run to six games (two wins and four draws). In a direct clash between two sides harbouring aspirations to make a top-four finish, Roma were in devastating form as they annihilated Genoa 3-0 at home. This was Genoa's first upset after a 10-match unbeaten run (five wins and five draws). Roma have now gone six successive games without a defeat (four wins and two draws).

6 winless games in a row (one draw and five defeats) have seen Catania taking a nose-dive in the standings. On Sunday, the Sicilians went agonisingly down to 10-man Juventus at home. Walter Zenga's side are now seven points outside the red zone. Leaders Inter were in complete control as they brushed aside Lecce's early resistance to cruise to a 3-0 win at the Via del Mare stadium. The champions are undefeated in their last four games (three wins and one draw).

9 years had to pass for Reggina to emerge unbeaten from the San Siro after denting Milan's title aspirations by holding them to a 1-1 draw. Although Milan had the best scoring chances in the entire game, Reggina took the lead and it was only through a Kaka penalty that Milan equalised midway through the second half. Before, Reggina had finished on the losing end in all their previous seven visits to Milan.

23 goals were scored on the 23rd day: 12 coming from the hosts and the remaining 11 from the visitors. Total number of goals scored so far is 571. Six players, Nicola Ventola (Torino), Vincenzo Italiano (Chievo), Massimo Maccarone (Siena), Alexis Sanchez (Udinese), Christian Poulsen (Juventus) and Julio Baptista (Roma), came on as substitutes and scored. Kaka converted the only penalty of the weekend. Two coaches, Gianpiero Gasperini (Genoa) and Massimiliano Allegri (Cagliari), were ordered off their bench. Vincenzo Iaquinta (Juventus), Rodrigo Taddei (Roma), Giuseppe Sculli (Genoa), Diego Lopez (Cagliari) and Lorenzo De Silvestri (Lazio) received marching orders. Bologna's Marco Di Vaio still leads the scorers' list with 15 goals.