Napoli's stylish approach is paying off in a bid to channel the spirit of Maradona

I am always on the hunt for new TV suggestions and remain grateful to whoever put me on to three absolute gems in Sky Atlantic's The White Lotus and Disney+ duo Only Murderers in the Building and The Bear.

There is a great buzz around The Last of Us but I was immediately put off by the Wikipedia page which described the series as "set in a post-apocalyptic United States ravaged by cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus in the genus Cordyceps."

I'll swerve that - my mind can't get around fantasy - and even within drama there has to be a semblance of reality.

Rich people behaving despicably as in The White Lotus is perfectly believable. Only Murders in the Building brings the fascinating genre of true crime podcasts to life in a comedic fashion and a talented chef being bogged down by stress makes perfect sense in The Bear as examples of how I need a hybrid of real life with good TV.

So forgive me for momentarily going totally off-track and heading to fantasy, to an after-life where Diego Maradona is looking down on this bonkers football season.

He'd be having a party - of course he'd be having a party - but with an extra glint in his eye after Argentina won the World Cup and his adopted home of Naples surely on the verge of celebrating their first Scudetto since the Maradona-led side of 1990.

Napoli went 13 points clear at the top of Serie A on Sunday following a thrilling 2-1 win over Jose Mourinho's Roma at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, a change of name to honour their greatest ever player following his death.

Even serial moaner Mourinho had little to complain about in the aftermath, and having spent his entire career talking about how only winners can celebrate, posted a picture of his beaten team in the dressing room on Instagram.

"We are certainly the side that made Napoli suffer the most and made the stadium feel empty in an extraordinary atmosphere, as we scared them," he reckoned.

Giovanni Simeone's cracker did for Roma after Victor Osimhen scored the most brilliant of openers to help Napoli to a 17th win in 20 league games. They have scored 48 times and notched another 20 in six Champions League matches.

Osimhen has been one of Europe's hottest strikers, while Georgian wonderkid Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's rise is even more remarkable and it's no exaggeration to suggest Napoli could make ten times the amount they paid for the left winger (a reported £10m) from Dinamo Batumi last summer.

Kvaradona was not the only shrewd bit of business done by Napoli, who have made a profit on transfers this season, but at the heart of everything is Spalletti.

The 63-year-old puts style before substance - someone such as Mourinho would previously have labelled him a specialist in failure - but Spalletti's time is coming.

Explaining his ideology the day before Napoli humiliated Juventus 5-1, Spalletti said: "There are two different philosophies, (Max) Allegri espouses the Juventus motto, winning is the only thing that matters.

"Here it’s more heart and soul, there was Maradona, they saw him play, and when he won he showed how much beauty there is in football. We can’t help but take some of that beauty with us and hope to reproduce it."

Fantasists will reckon Maradona is looking from above and isn't content with just Napoli being Serie A winners. Maybe he wants them to go one step further and win the Champions League.

It would be the perfect ending but it's not too far-fetched. Napoli look good enough with or without divine intervention.

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