UCL Preview - Key player, tactics and unpredictability: What Barcelona should expect from Napoli

What should Barcelona expect from Napoli? We’ve asked our friends at Football Italia for a preview of the Serie A defending champions ahead of their Champions League meeting with the Blaugrana.

It’s fair to say that there are a lot of question marks surrounding Francesco Calzona’s Napoli heading into the business end of the season, with endless unknowns circulating high above the Campania capital.

Calzona, who has retained his role as Slovakia coach whilst leading the Partenopei to the end of the season, has not yet suffered defeat in Serie A since taking over, guiding the team to two wins and three draws in his first five matches across all competitions.

An impressive 6-1 thrashing of Sassuolo and a tense 2-1 win over Juventus both restored some faith in Napoli, who have been all over the place this term, but their latest 1-1 draw with Torino showed that there is still a lot of work to be done in the final few months of the campaign.

Off the pitch, Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has started to grow increasingly chaotic; he first took aim at DAZN ahead of their match with Juventus, trying to protest against the broadcaster, and then he abruptly stopped Matteo Politano’s interview with Sky Sports Italia.

With 10 matches left in this Serie A season, the defending champions find themselves seventh in the table, seven points behind fourth place Bologna. A huge upswing in form is needed if the Campania outfit want to secure a Champions League finish, something that looks unlikely at this stage.

Calzona has not introduced many sweeping changes since taking over Napoli last month, retaining the 4-3-3 system that led them to the Scudetto last year. The team still heavily rely on star moments from Victor Osimhen and Khvicha