Nicolò Barella is the best-performing Italy player in Serie A in the opening five rounds, followed by Juventus centre-back Federico Gatti and Napoli‘s Alessandro Buongiorno.
Inter star Barella is the Italian player with the highest average rating from sports papers in the country among footballers who have made at least 50% of appearances this term.
As Fantacalcio revealed, Barella has an average rating of 6.75, which makes him the third-best performer in the league after Taty Castellanos and Vanja Milinkovic-Savic.
However, Barella wasn’t even on the Italy squad for September matches against France and Israel as he underwent pre-arranged nose surgery. The Nerazzurri star is unlikely to feature in the next two as well, given that a muscle injury has ruled him out for three weeks.
Federico Gatti of Juventus follows Barella as the second-best Italian player in the league, with a 6.62 rating, which puts him among the top 10 Serie A performers in the opening five weeks.
Top 10 Italian players Week 1-5*
Nicolò Barella (Midfielder, Inter) 6.75
Federico Gatti (Defender, Juventus) 6.62
Alessandro Buongiorno (Defender, Napoli) 6.5
Federico Dimarco (Defender, Inter) 6.5
Alex Meret (Goalkeeper, Napoli) 6.5
Wladimiro Falcone (Goalkeeper, Lecce) 6.5
Mateo Retegui (Striker, Atalanta) 6.4
Sebastiano Esposito (Striker, Empoli) 6.4
Giuseppe Pezzella (Defender, Empoli) 6.4
Gianluca Mancini (Defender, Roma) 6.4
Samuele Ricci (Midfielder, Torino) 6.4
*based on average player ratings from sports papers among those with at least 50% appearances