Why Rafael Benitez Is Under Pressure at Napoli This Season

For a team we have become accustomed to seeing hovering around the top of the Serie A ladder in recent years, Napoli are off to a disappointing start to their 2014-15 campaign.

Back-to-back wins in the league before the international break will have eased the pressure somewhat, as will an undefeated record in the Europa League, but the club are probably just a loss or two away from plunging into crisis.

Once Serie A gets back underway, manager Rafael Benitez will be under intense scrutiny. At this point he should be more than a little worried about his job security.

Napoli currently sit seventh in the table, which is lower than they would like to be after six rounds. Worryingly for Benitez, they already trail leaders Juventus by eight points and second-place Roma by five points.

The southern club may not have started the season with ambitions of beating Juventus to the Scudetto, but they would have certainly hoped to push the three-time champions harder than they are at the moment.

A finish in the Champions League places would also have been a very realistic goal at the start of the campaign, but that dream will fade very quickly with a few more poor results.

They also suffered the major blow—both in footballing terms and financially—of missing out on the Champions League group stage this season after losing over two legs to Athletic Bilbao in the qualifying play-off.

Over the next four weeks, the Partenopei have a moderately difficult draw in the league. They face Inter in the San Siro in Round 7, then high-flying Verona at home, Atalanta away and Roma at home.

The Roma game could prove an especially key moment of Napoli's 2014-15 season. A win there could revitalise their campaign, while a loss would most likely see them lose touch completely with the competition's leading group.

That may represent a kind of "D-Day" for Benitez, especially if results to that point are poor or even mixed.

Part of the reason Benitez is under pressure is because this is his second full season in charge at the San Paolo.

Managers are usually—though not always—given some leeway in their first season in charge, as club directors accept that they need time to mould the team in their image.

If results do not always go the side's way in the early months of a coach's tenure, it must at least be apparent that there is a plan in place and a system being developed. 

The sale of Edinson Cavani at the start of his time in charge of Napoli ensured that the former Liverpool boss had a massive war chest with which to build the squad he desired. 

Salvatore Laporta/Associated Press

A third-place finish last season was adequate, though not as good as second place the year before. Anything lower than that this time around is unlikely to be acceptable to most of the club's fans.

According to Metro, there are already grumblings that Napoli's big-game players like Gonzalo Higuain are unhappy with the current situation at the club and could be eyeing off moves away.

Unless there is a continued improvement in results, Benitez could see his project unravel completely.

The pressure will well and truly be on for the Spanish manager over the next few weeks.