Four matches to save his skin, or rather to extend his lease under very high surveillance: according to the two sports dailies Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport who do not cite in their Tuesday edition any source, Rudi Garcia plays big until the next international break in early October.

With Udinese, Lecce and Fiorentina on the menu, three opponents within their reach, Napoli can theoretically collect nine points.

With a shock on October 3 in the Champions League against Real Madrid, Napoli and Garcia will be quickly fixed on their future.

"Once we win a game, I'm sure we'll have a positive series," the French coach said on Sunday.

Before the 6th day scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday, Garcia's Napoli is 7th (8 pts), seven lengths behind Inter Milan.

Osimhen out of himself

Last season, after five rounds, Luciano Spalletti's Napoli were 2nd and had pocketed four more points.

If from a statistical point of view, the beginning of the 2023-24 season is not catastrophic, the dynamic questions to say the least.

Napoli's Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen (l) during the Champions League match in Braga (Portugal), September 20, 2023 © MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP/Archives

Before hosting Udine (18th) in its stadium on Wednesday (20:45), Napoli remains on three matches without a win -without taking into account the victory in the Champions League in Braga 2-1 last week-: a defeat at home against Lazio (2-1) and two draws on the road against Genoa (2-2) and Bologna (0-0).

More worrying for Garcia, target since his appointment and even more since the beginning of the season of the mistrust of Napoli supporters, his players no longer hide their discontent.

It was first Khvicha Kvaratskhelia who, at the time of his substitution against Genoa on September 16, expressed his surprise with an unequivocal gesture.

On Sunday, it was Victor Osimhen, top scorer in Serie A last season, who, beside himself, reproached Garcia for his tactical choices by leaving the field.

Garcia and Osimhen have since explained themselves and the Nigerian striker, coveted by Europe's biggest clubs this summer, has escaped a fine.

Kvaratskhelia and Osimhen are the two symbols of Napoli's impressive 2022-23 season at the end of which they gave them a third title in 33 years.

"No more authority"

This season, they are the two Serie A players who have shot the most on goal, but Kvaratskhelia has been silent since March and Osimhen has scored only three goals (26 last season, but only two after Matchday 5).

Club owner and president Aurelio De Laurentiis who sacked Carlo Ancelotti in December 2019 after 15 days and a... 7th place, supports for the moment officially and publicly his coach.

Napoli's French coach Rudi Garcia during the Champions League match in Braga, Portugal, September 20, 2023 © CARLOS COSTA / AFP/Archives

This is in any case what must be understood from his message on X (ex-Twitter) published just after the match against Bologna ended: "Napoli is reviving in Bologna, congratulations to all".

But former glories do not hesitate to criticize the former coach of Lille and AS Roma.

"There is no longer in this team of pleasure to play, the Napoli who won the title no longer exists," said former international Salvatore Bagni, Italian champion with Napoli in 1987.

"If you come to take the direction of a perfect team and you make it play badly, it is because you were wrong somewhere," he said.

"He no longer has any authority over his dressing room," said Antonio Cassano, another former Italy international.

One name comes up insistently to succeed Garcia, that of Igor Tudor, without a post since his departure from Marseille.

© 2023 AFP