Bologna Vs Sampdoria
Sunday 27 October 2019 – 11:30 Kick-Off
Italian Serie A
Pick: Bologna to WIN
Odds: 10/11
Bookmaker:Betway
Italian Serie A Betting – 22Bet
Preview: The decision to enforce a change of manager will hopefully prove to be the catalyst for a revival in fortunes as far as Sampdoria are concerned. So, can a team currently bottom of Serie A pick up its first points on the road all season when they travel to the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara, home of mid-table Bologna?
Bologna V Sampdoria Live Stats & Betting Odds
Bologna Preview – Rossoblu better than their current position?
In his second spell as manager at the club, Sinisa Mihajlovic has dramatically transformed the fortunes of a team seemingly on a one-way ticket to relegation when he arrived in January earlier this year. Nine wins from his seventeen league games in charge was a remarkable turnaround for a group of players that had won only twice all season prior to his arrival. The 50-year-old may not spend all that much time on the touchline any more due to a recent Leukaemia diagnosis, but his impact is still being felt.
Bologna (13th – W2 D3 L3, GF10 GA11) continue to meddle in mid-table, and continue to play an attacking and progressive brand of football. The one criticism would be their inability to convert some of the vast amount of chances this side continues to create, averaging 2.10 xGF this season – a hugely impressive figure for a club of their stature and resources. Provided the rate at which chances are being carved out continues, more points should be added to their modest total of nine sooner rather than later.
A home encounter with the league’s poorest outfit would seem an ideal place to start. The “Rossoblu” have only mustered the one win at home all season, though, which was the narrowest of scorelines versus SPAL (1-0). Yet contests with Lazio (2-2) and Roma (L1-2) were evenly-fought affairs against two of the better teams in this league, while last week saw them cause Juventus plenty of problems in a 2-1 defeat in Turin.
Sampdoria Preview – Will Samp turn things around under Ranieri?
This has been some tumble from Sampdoria (20th – W1 D1 L6, GF4 GA16), who for much of the previous league campaign flirted with the idea of European football but faded badly in the closing stages to finish in ninth place. Their final six fixtures would return only one win and five points, so the warning signs were there although surely nobody envisaged such a bleak start to the new term.
So torrid has their start to the season been that Eusebio Di Francesco was given his marching orders as manager during the recent international break, with the rather uninspiring choice of Claudio Ranieri installed to fill the void. To his credit, the former Roma and Leicester City boss would begin his tenure in a positive, if slightly low-key, fashion with a dour goalless draw at home with AS Roma. Just a second occasion this team has avoided defeat in Serie A all season.
Perhaps the main takeaway from that Roma stalemate will have been the clean sheet, a rare commodity for Sampdoria this season with it being only their second. Ranieri will attempt to make this team more difficult to beat moving forward, which may not auger well for their goal potential, which was already minimal having found the back of the net fewer times (4) than any other side. As for their away form, it is an uncomplicated four defeats from four outings.
Bologna V Sampdoria Key Facts:
- Bologna sit in 13th place in the Serie A table (W2 D3 L3).
- Sampdoria are bottom of the league table after losing six of their opening eight fixtures (W1 D1 L6).
- Bologna have won each of the previous four league encounters as the home side, running out comfortable 3-0 winners as the hosts last season.
Betting Summary
Bologna should be much further up in the Serie A table, with performances meriting more than their lowly current standing of 13th (W2 D3 L3). Their record at home has been indifferent (W1 D1 L1), but that can be excused to some degree by some tough fixtures. Goalscoring chances, meanwhile, continue to be created at a decent rate, which bodes well ahead of facing one of the league’s leakiest backlines.
Sampdoria were in such dire straits that a managerial change was called for by supporters, and subsequently put into action by the hierarchy within. Claudio Ranieri is now at the helm of a club currently bottom of Serie A with only win from its opening eight fixtures (W1 D1 L6). Meanwhile, none of their four points were earned away from home, losing all four such matches whilst conceding at least two goals on each occasion.
The beauty of Expected Goals is it provides a deeper understanding of a team’s underlying process. This, in turn, enables us to better gauge how a team might fare in future fixtures. Bologna continue to create a lot of chances in their games and are perhaps unfortunate to have collected so few points. The hosts may not win this match, but there can be no denying which of these teams are currently displaying the greater potential to do so at this moment in time.
