/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46001630/GettyImages-467601244.0.jpg)
This is something we've feared for awhile now, and it's starting to take shape: Gonzalo Higuain might not be long for Naples.
The Napoli forward hasn't always seemed perfectly content during this season's struggles, and now his agent-slash-brother has made a statement to the press that makes it sound as though Higuain is about fed up with this team not being as good as it can be.
"I can't talk much right now and it's not the time to face this question," Jorge Higuain said when asked about Gonzalo's future. "I will be in Italy in a month's time and we will have the opportunity to discuss his position [with Napoli] then."
With Napoli in poor form, five points adrift of the Champions League places in Serie A, and facing a brutal run of their schedule between now and the end of April, it doesn't seem especially likely that things will be better off for the club or Higuain's happiness by then. If he's not satisfied with Napoli's standing -- in other words, if Napoli don't make the Champions League -- we could easily see Higuain force his way out this summer.
It won't be pretty and it won't be fun, but it's perhaps an inevitable outcome to the way this season has been. The club is leaving, Rafa Benitez looks to be leaving, and with those two factors combined, we should probably expect several players he brought in to leave this summer. The foremost of those is Higuain, and he also represents the hardest of the lot to replace. It's little wonder that Napoli have been linked with so many strikers lately, but whoever comes in will have some massive shoes to fill if Higuain does leave.