Juve didn't go top of the league until Feb last season. For the first 25 weeks they were off the pace, and were down in 12th in October. They had to go on an amazing 25 game unbeaten run to claw it back and finally win it. Serie A is not on the level of the Premier League, but I don't really spend too much time bigging up the PL when Leicester walked it last season. No way would a team with their technical deficiencies win the league in Italy.
I completely agree that there are only 4-5 decent teams in Italy, but is that far off the amount of decent teams in England last season? Southampton finished 6th, are they anything other than an above average team? I think we look at leagues overseas and judge them differently. If United, Liverpool and Chelsea are not in the Top 4 we still regard them as big clubs and decent teams, but when equally talented teams finish 6th, 8th, 10th or wherever in other countries we don't use the same rules. We simply look the league table and think 'those top 3 must be good, everyone else looks crap' whilst in England we big up sides that aren't that good.