Yr changing the goal posts... its not abt 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th placed teams reaching the levels of the top 2... you asked if those ranked 3rd, 4th, 5th 6th are better than their Italian counterparts... any team can have a off yr, look at juve's fecked-up season... if you take into consideration the last 5 or so yrs then the answer is absolutely they are.
And why are we measuring ourselves against the English... we stand only with Real & Barca... look how far away from them are we.
I think you're missing Maldini's (and my) point about the superiority of the English Premier League being blown out of the proportion. There are many pundits out there convinced that just because the top 2-3 English sides are so much better than the rest of Europe right now (no one is denying this), that this also means the rest of the league are proportionally or relatively better as well. They're convinced that the likes of West Ham, Leicester, Everton, or even Crystal Palace would give top Serie A sides (like us, Napoli, and Inter) a good shellacking and play them completely off the park. According to some of them, we and Inter are no better than lower mid-table English teams. If that isn't a clear and obvious exaggeration and overestimation of the superiority of the Premiership, then I don't know what is.
I feel the gap between the top 2-3 English sides and say, the next top 4-8 English sides, like Man Utd or Spurs, is roughly just as wide as the gap between the top 2-3 English teams and the top Italian/Spanish sides currently. Which is why I said, we have just as much chance of bridging the gap between us and the current European elite (Liverpool, Man City, Bayern, Chelsea) as Man Utd or Spurs currently have.
To put it slightly differently, the top 2-3 English sides (Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea) are fairly anomalous sides. They are not exactly reflective of the overall quality of the English league and its apparent vast superiority over the other leagues. The Premiership is the best league in the world, but this idea that it's utterly and comprehensively far and away vastly more superior than the other European leagues is quite an exaggeration.