European hopefuls Fiorentina face third-placed Napoli on Thursday at the Artemio Franchi stadium in their last match before the Serie A winter break. Last season Napoli beat Fiorentina 2-1 at home and clinched a 1-1 draw away, but before that campaign they had three consecutive wins in all competitions over Thursday's opponents. Fiorentina have not clinched a home victory over Napoli since 2009.
Fiorentina are currently struggling in eighth place after losing three of their last five league matches, including the last two. It's true that their last two matches were both away from home, but they were probably expecting at least a couple of points out of them. Borja Valero and Nenad Tomovic might miss out through injury, but apart from them head coach Paulo Sousa has no injury concerns.
At the end of October Napoli lost to bitter rivals Juventus but they bounced back from that disappointment and have not lost a single game since. Moreover, they managed to qualify from their Champions League group and last week they secured a spectacular 5-3 victory over Torino with four goals scored by Dries Mertens. The Belgium forward has scored seven goals in the last two matches, making the injury to striker Arkadiusz Milik seem long forgotten. Defender Kalidou Koulibaly is also out injured.
Probable line-ups:
Fiorentina: Tatarusanu - Salcedo, Rodriguez, Astori - Tello, Vecino, Badelj, Olivera - Ilicic, Bernardeschi - Kalinic
Napoli: Reina - Hysaj, Chiriches, Albiol, Ghoulam - Zielinski, Diawara, Hamsik - Callejon, Mertens, Insigne
My prediction: Napoli to win 3-1.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Fiorentina win - 3.60 Draw - 3.50 Napoli win - 2.05
sharpe
7 years ago
Well Napoli maybe looked like a favourites on paper but in reality they were lucky to even get a point from this one with late stoppage time equalizer from a penalty. Fiorentina is one of the best home field teams in this league and despite that they drew five times they still doesn't have a loss at home. Napoli scores...
Well Napoli maybe looked like a favourites on paper but in reality they were lucky to even get a point from this one with late stoppage time equalizer from a penalty. Fiorentina is one of the best home field teams in this league and despite that they drew five times they still doesn't have a loss at home. Napoli scores but also allows too many goals and that stand on their way to be a serious title contender.
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GREGJO
7 years ago
I agree with Johnny, Napoli are the clear favorites tonight. They are a scoring-machine at nowadays (scored 15 goals in the last 4 competitive matches, and they are the highest-scoring team in the Serie A with 37 goals). Fiorentina seem really strong at home this season (they haven't lost, 4 wins and 4 draws) but they are...
I agree with Johnny, Napoli are the clear favorites tonight. They are a scoring-machine at nowadays (scored 15 goals in the last 4 competitive matches, and they are the highest-scoring team in the Serie A with 37 goals). Fiorentina seem really strong at home this season (they haven't lost, 4 wins and 4 draws) but they are not prolific goalscorers (scored only 8 times at home). I think they will try to slow down Napoli's pace and will focusing on counter-attacks. Both teams to score - YES is my choice, and my predictions are: 1-1 or Napoli to win to 2-1.
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