Kevin De Bruyne, Napoli's 34-year-old Belgian midfielder, was singled out as below his best as Antonio Conte's side were held to a goalless draw away at Como on Sunday — a result that left the Partenopei second in Serie A on 70 points from 35 matches, still chasing the summit with the season entering its final stretch.
The draw itself was tight and competitive. Como's Nico Paz and Martin Baturina started and caused problems, with the hosts denied by a goal-line clearance at one point, while Matteo Politano struck the woodwork for Napoli at the other end. Conte described it as a good performance and another step forward, but the absence of a winning goal — and De Bruyne's subdued display — will sharpen questions about where the Belgian's form stands heading into the run-in.
De Bruyne's condition has become the central variable in Napoli's attacking equation. Across 16 Serie A appearances this season he has contributed five goals and one assist, numbers that represent a reasonable return for a deep-lying creator but fall short of the transformative output Napoli recruited him to provide. His average rating of 7.00 suggests consistency rather than dominance — a player who rarely has a catastrophic game but has not yet produced the sequence of decisive performances that shifts a title race.
At 34, the physical demands of a full Serie A campaign were always going to require careful management, and Conte — who knows how to extract late-season energy from experienced players — will be weighing De Bruyne's workload against the fixtures that remain. The Belgian's AI overall score of 75 out of 100 reflects a player still operating at a meaningful level, but a potential score of 45 underlines the ceiling that age and accumulated mileage impose.
Napoli's position — second, seven points clear of the relegation of ambition that comes with missing the title — means every dropped point now carries compound interest. The Como draw keeps the pressure on, and De Bruyne returning to his sharper self is not a luxury Conte can afford to treat as optional.