The most instructive story from this week in Serie A is not found in the forward line. It is found at the back. Three defenders cracked the top performers list with goals, and the highest individual rating of the week — a 9.50 — belongs to a centre-back. When the most productive players in a division are the ones nominally tasked with preventing goals, it tells you something about the tactical texture of the matches played.

Goalkeepers

Parma goalkeeper Zion Suzuki edges the position with a rating of 8.60 across his full 90 minutes, narrowly ahead of Fiorentina's David de Gea Quintana, who posted an 8.50 in the same span. The proximity of those two figures is itself a story: two goalkeepers, at opposite ends of their careers and at clubs with very different ambitions, delivering performances of near-identical quality in the same week. Napoli's Alex Meret rounds out the trio at 7.70, a solid if less exceptional contribution. All three played the full match, which means their ratings reflect sustained reliability rather than a single decisive intervention.

De Gea's continued presence among the week's best performers is a reminder that his return to Italian football has been more than sentimental. Meret, meanwhile, remains a consistent if unspectacular presence between the posts for Napoli — a goalkeeper whose value is often felt most clearly in the weeks when he does not appear in these rankings.

Defence

Roma centre-back Gianluca Mancini produced the week's single highest-rated performance: a 9.50 in 83 minutes that included two goals. That is an extraordinary return for a defender, and the rating reflects not just the goals but the overall authority of the display. Mancini's contribution reframes what a modern ball-playing centre-back can offer — not merely as an outlet but as a genuine threat.

Napoli's Amir Rrahmani was close behind at 9.20, adding a goal across his full 90 minutes. Two of Napoli's best performers this week came from defence, which speaks to the structural discipline that has long defined the club's better periods. Zachary Athekame, the Venezia defender, completed the defensive trio with a rating of 8.30 and a goal in 90 minutes. Athekame's inclusion is the week's most notable surprise: a full-back at a side fighting for survival, performing at a level that would not look out of place in a title contender's backline.

Midfield

Juventus midfielder Manuel Locatelli leads the engine room this week with a rating of 8.50 across 90 minutes, without a goal or assist to his name. That is the kind of performance that only registers properly when you watch the match: positional discipline, ball retention, the quiet management of tempo that keeps a team organised when it might otherwise fragment. Locatelli has always been more legible to coaches than to casual observers, and this week is consistent with that pattern.

Napoli's Scott McTominay follows at 8.30 with a goal in 90 minutes, continuing a Serie A adaptation that has been more fluent than many anticipated when he arrived. His ability to arrive late into scoring positions from midfield gives Napoli a dimension that is difficult to account for defensively. Lazio's Petar Sučić rounds out the midfield section at 8.20 across 90 minutes — no goal, no assist, but a rating that suggests consistent involvement in everything Lazio tried to build.

Attack

Two forwards share a 9.20 rating this week, and they arrived at it by very different means. Sassuolo's Armand Laurienté scored once in 88 minutes, his performance built on sustained pressure and direct running that kept his opponents honest throughout. Walid Cheddira, the Parma forward, scored twice in 80 minutes to match that rating — a more concentrated burst of output, but no less valuable for it. Cheddira's brace in fewer than 80 minutes is the kind of return that shifts a club's calculus around a player quickly.

Jérémie Boga, operating for Atalanta, earns an 8.70 rating from just 45 minutes of action. No goal, no assist — but a half-match performance rated higher than most players managed across a full 90. Boga has always been capable of compressing impact into short windows, and this week is a clean example of that quality.

Verdict

The week's defining pattern is the collapse of positional hierarchy: in a league increasingly built around vertical intensity and set-piece threat, the distinction between a goal-scoring defender and a supporting forward is becoming harder to draw — and the data from this week makes that case without needing to argue it.