Football – Italy – Serie A
Saturday 18th April 2015 – Kickoff: 1800hrs
Although a point away at AC Milan would normally be considered a good result for most teams, this has resulted in Sampdoria dropping out of the top five after a 1-1 result on Sunday night.
Sampdoria go into this weekend’s round of matches level inn points with Fiorentina who hold a 2-goal superior goal difference, but three points tonight would see Sampdoria leapfrog their rivals who play on Monday night.
This would be sweet revenge over Fiorentina who had beaten Sampdoria 2-0 recently at home, but Sampdoria themselves return back to more familiar surroundings where they’ve recently posted back-to-back Serie A wins over Cagliari and Inter Milan.
Sampdoria’s overall home record stands at a robust 7-7-0 20/10 with only Serie A leaders Juventus also remaining unbeaten at home to date. They’ve kept six clean sheets so far as well, and I daresay they’ll be keen for another shut-out tonight in order to help boost their goal difference.
Cesena remained in the bottom three following last weekend’s 1-0 defeat at home to Chievo Verona, and they’re now seven points adrift of Atalanta who are on 29 points, and there is now a very clear distinction between the bottom three and the rest of the table.
Cesena are without an away win from their last four with defeats at Empoli and AC Milan while they’ve managed to hold out-of-sorts Inter Milan and Hellas Verona to stalemates on their last two trips.
However, with just one away win all season in an overall record of 1-4-9 13/28, I daresay Cesena will have their work cut out for them this evening if they’re to get anything from this match, particularly when you consider they’ve failed to keep a clean sheet on the road all season so far.
I’ll give the three-quarter ball on the hosts here as I can’t completely rule out the possibility of a draw, but Sampdoria really should win this perhaps 1-0.
Pick: Sampdoria AH-0.75 @ 1.69 Bet Victor
