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Was this the end of the Serie A title race? On a weekend when the last two teams pursuing them both slipped up, Inter delivered another statement victory, recovering from two goals down to win 4-3 away to a Como side who had been playing some of the best football in the division.

When the final whistle went, manager Christian Chivu celebrated like a man who knew exactly what it meant, hugging an assistant so hard he lifted them off the floor. Inter were nine points clear now in first place, with six games to go. But when the cameras arrived for post-game interviews, he played coy.

“The maths say we still need a few more points to reach our objective,” insisted Chivu with a smirk. “Which is to qualify for the Champions League.”

He was, he reminded us, only following the lead of his fellow managers at other clubs. If Antonio Conte and Massimiliano Allegri always insisted that Napoli and Milan weren’t aiming for the Scudetto then why shouldn’t he? A bit of mischief from the Inter boss. You could hardly call it mind games, now the race is as good as done.

Inter, who have lost five Serie A games all season, are not going to lose three more. Even if they did, would second-placed Napoli catch up? They still must go away to Como themselves. Conte has done a fine job of stabilising his team after a winter wobble, and they had won five in a row before this weekend. But after falling behind in the first minute against Parma, they never looked likely to extend that run.

Napoli had almost 75% of possession, and attempted 20 shots, but Parma’s goalkeeper Zion Suzuki was never required to make a memorable save. Scott McTominay – who else? – beat him with a side-foot finish to reward a neat piece of one-touch buildup play just before the hour mark. But that was as much as the Partenopei could muster, and the game finished 1-1.

McTominay has been Napoli’s best player again this season, scoring eight goals from midfield and showing up on the biggest occasions. Without his two strikes in a 2-2 draw at Inter in January, talk of a title race might not have lasted this long.

Overall, though, Napoli have gone backwards, despite investments to strengthen their squad after winning the Scudetto. Noa Lang and Lorenzo Lucca, who cost more than €60m combined, now play for Galatasaray and Nottingham Forest. Sam Beukema, the centre-back signed for just over €30m from Bologna, has been inconsistent and found himself back on the bench this Sunday.

The most high-profile signing, of course, was Kevin De Bruyne, on a free transfer. He made an encouraging start, before being sidelined for four-and-a-half months by a hamstring tear.

After Napoli’s draw with Inter at the start of this year, McTominay gave a memorable interview in which he argued Napoli deserved more credit for staying in the fight despite their lengthy injury list. “No [Frank] Anguissa, no [Romelu] Lukaku, no [Billy] Gilmour, no [Kevin] De Bruyne, no [Amir] Rrahmani at the start of the season. [David] Neres injured. I mean, if Inter Milan had no [Marcus] Thuram, no [Lautaro] Martínez, no [Nicolò] Barella, no [Hakan] Çalhanoğlu, that’s difficult.”

The tricky, and perhaps still unanswered, question is whether having those players available might have given Napoli a different set of problems. De Bruyne and Anguissa both started on Sunday and, not for the first time, it was unclear how they were supposed to coexist with McTominay. The usual answer has been that the Scotland international gets pushed further left, making space for his teammates in the middle.

Perhaps that is fine. McTominay did still score against Parma, after all, and later tried for a winner with an unsuccessful overhead attempt. Neither De Bruyne nor Anguissa, though, left such a mark.

Then again, maybe focusing our attention here misses greater areas of weakness. Napoli have been worse in defence this season, conceding four more goals already than they did in all of 2024-25. And while McTominay keeps on scoring, they have lacked a consistent finisher up front.

Lukaku, their top scorer last season, has missed most of this campaign with a hamstring injury of his own. It appears uncertain now that he will play for the club again after spending the recent international break in Belgium against his employers’ wishes.

Initially called up for a pair of friendlies in North America, Lukaku withdrew to continue rehab instead. Napoli expected him to do this at their own training facility, but he chose to stay in Antwerp, visiting a clinic that De Bruyne has attended in the past.

Lukaku defended his choices in an Instagram story that also referenced the death of his father last September. “This season has been a lot for me,” he said, while reaffirming his commitment to Napoli and highlighting his recent 96th-minute winner in an appearance off the bench against Verona.

Napoli’s sporting director Giovanni Manna, however, has been less conciliatory, saying “there will be consequences”. It is not hard to imagine how a club might seek to use a moment like this for leverage, as they work out the future of a highly-paid player who turns 33 next month and has played 40 minutes of Serie A football this season.

The centre-forward position will be a focus for Napoli this summer. Rasmus Højlund has scored 10 goals, but making his loan from Manchester United permanent would cost a reported €44m. Meanwhile, Alisson Santos, the 23-year-old Brazilian signed from Sporting in February, has fans wanting to see more after promising cameos.

An even bigger question surrounds Conte’s future, amid reports linking him with a return to the national team. “I’ve never told anyone I’m available for anything,” he told Rai Radio on Sunday. Perhaps not. But he did say in a previous interview that “if I was president of the Italian Football Federation, I would consider hiring myself.”

Which would be the greater challenge? Picking Italy back up off the floor after a third consecutive missed World Cup, or rousing Napoli – who have fielded the oldest average starting XIs in Serie A this season – for one more title run? Watching a youthful Como dominate Inter for long periods on Sunday, it was tempting to wonder if they were the more likely challengers in 2027.

Yet for all the majestic dribbling of Nico Paz and the intelligent detail of Cesc Fàbregas’s scheme to unsettle Alessandro Bastoni on the left of Inter’s defence, Como still lost in the end. In fact, they were lucky not to lose by more. Having led 2-0, they fell 4-2 behind and only got one back from a penalty that was bizarrely awarded after Paz appeared to boot Ange-Yoan Bonny between the legs.

Goals win games, and in the end they win titles, too. Inter, who got two each from Thuram and Denzel Dumfries, were simply more ruthless. They have scored 75 times in 32 games. Como, Serie A’s second-most prolific team, have only 56.

There is a conversation to be had about the shortage of great centre-forwards in Italy at this moment. Lautaro Martínez is the division’s leading scorer on 16 goals, and nobody else has more than 11. That, though, is for another day. This one is for Inter to celebrate another big step toward the Scudetto. And yes, also Champions League qualification.