Fiorentina v Inter Milan
Although suffering a narrow defeat to Real Madrid in Europe, Inter are going reasonably strong domestically, winning three of four league games to date. Those Serie A encounters have seen them strike 15 times, though they haven’t managed a clean sheet since an opening day win over Genoa.
After an opening day loss to Roma, Fiorentina have recovered with three straight wins over Torino, Atalanta and Genoa. Both teams have scored in all four of their games so far and in fact, the same has been true of their past six hosting Inter in all competitions since 2015/16.
Both teams have scored in six of Fiorentina’s last eight against last season’s top seven since March now, and given it’s also occurred in five of Inter’s past six league games on the road, they’ll fancy their chances of giving the Nerazzurri something to think about.
Simone Inzaghi is likely to make one or two changes, with Hakan Calhanoglu brought back into the side for Matias Vecino and Edin Dzeko likely to retain his place having come off the bench. For Fiorentina, Alvaro Odriozola should expect to keep his place at right-back having been heavily involved in their attack at the weekend in the absence of Lorenzo Venuti.
PREDICTION:
BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE
AC Milan v Venezia
Milan rescued a point away at Juventus through Ante Rebic, though were lacking in energy after demanding clashes with Lazio and Liverpool, while the absences of both Olivier Giroud and Zlatan Ibrahimovic left them without a natural focus point in attack.
It remains to be seen if Giroud can recover in time for this clash, though on home turf, Milan should still be expected to create chances against one of the division’s lesser lights. Venezia have lost three of four games this season as the exception came against fellow promoted outfit Empoli. The only other time they’ve found the net came at home to Spezia, as they went down 2-0 and 3-0 away to Napoli and Udinese respectively in their other fixtures.
Milan are W9-D2-L1 against promoted sides since 2019/20, registering clean sheets in eight of those wins, and it’s just as well that they have greater strength in depth at the back these days. Simon Kjaer is out of this clash after tweaking his hamstring against Juventus last time out, and with Davide Calabria also sidelined, Fikayo Tomori will move to his preferred position at centre-back and summer recruit Alessandro Florenzi should start at right-back. Milan’s past two games with Liverpool and Juventus were always going to be tough assignments, but they showed enough across their first three games to suggest they’ll have no problems here.
PREDICTION:
AC MILAN TO WIN TO NIL
Sampdoria v Napoli
Napoli continued their perfect start to the season with a comfortable 4-0 win away at Udinese, taking them to the top of the table after four rounds of action. The nearest to a blot on their record this term was a 2-2 draw away at Leicester in the Europa League, in what appears to be their hardest assignment in the group stages, as the experienced Luciano Spalletti has got them playing some fine football.
Sampdoria only have the one defeat this season, going down narrowly to Milan on the opening day, and registered their first win at the weekend with a commanding 3-0 win over Empoli. Although they have picked up a point against Inter this term, that still leaves them with nine defeats from 13 encounters with last season’s top seven since December, while their record against Napoli in particular leaves a lot to be desired. The visitors have won 10 of 11 clashes with Sampdoria since 2016, including all five since 2019 as four came by a minimum two-goal margin.
PREDICTION:
NAPOLI TO WIN
18+BeGambleAware
GENTING CASINO ONLY OFFERS SPORTS ARTICLES AND NOT SPORTS BETTING
