Sampdoria and Udinese meet in Serie A on Sunday afternoon with both clubs having put together a losing streak in Italy's top flight.
The visitors sit in 13th position after three successive defeats, while their hosts are two places lower after succumbing twice in a row.
Match preview
© Reuters
Sampdoria were presented with the toughest opening six fixtures in the league, having to encounter AC Milan, Sassuolo, Inter Milan, Napoli and Juventus before the October international break.
When taking that into consideration, Roberto D'Aversa has reason to be satisfied with getting five points on the board, three of which came from a dominant win at Empoli.
I Blucerchiati are targeting another top-10 finish, and they showed enough in the games against Inter and Juventus that they deserve to be regarded as contenders for that achievement.
The main positive from the 3-2 defeat at Juve was the show of character after succumbing tamely to Napoli by a 4-0 scoreline in their previous fixture.
Nevertheless, with their schedule becoming easier over the coming weeks, D'Aversa needs to see points and victories if he is to be regarded as the right man for the job in the long term.
Udinese enjoyed a bright start to the campaign with seven points being collected from games against Juve, Venezia and Spezia Calcio.
However, three successive defeats without scoring a goal has put a different spin on things with I Biancoeri now sitting just three points above the relegation zone.
With two of those losses coming by a 1-0 scoreline against Roma and Fiorentina respectively, Luca Gotti will certainly not feel too despondent ahead of the next phase of the season.
That said, a further setback will see Udinese lose touch with the pack in mid-table, and Gotti will hope that his players rediscover their habit of netting goals in the latter stages of games to get back on track.
- L
- D
- W
- W
- L
- L
- D
- W
- W
- L
- L
- L
Team News
© Reuters
Mikkel Damsgaard will almost certainly be among a number of players who are handed a recall to the Sampdoria side.
The Dane could take the place of veteran forward Francesco Caputo, while Adrien Silva may return to the midfield in place of Fabio Depaoli.
Tommaso Augello is also in line to return at left-back, taking the spot of Nicola Murru who made his first start last weekend.
Jean-Victor Makengo will expect to be recalled to the Udinese XI after making a positive impression as a second-half substitute against Fiorentina.
Nahuel Molina is an option at right wing-back ahead of Brandon Soppy, but Ignacio Pussetto may remain among the replacements.
Sampdoria possible starting lineup:
Audero; Bereszynski, Yoshida, Colley, Murru; Deapoli, Thorsby, Ekdal, Silva; Candreva, Quagliarella, Damsgaard
Udinese possible starting lineup:
Silvestri; Becao, Nuytinck, Samir; Molina, Makengo, Walace, Pereyra, Larsen; Deulofeu, Beto
We say: Sampdoria 2-1 Udinese
Neither team will want another defeat on their record before the international break as they bid to remain clear of the relegation zone. With that in mind, do not be surprised to see a low-scoring draw play out at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Sampdoria win with a probability of 44.78%. A win for Udinese had a probability of 30.21% and a draw had a probability of 25%.
The most likely scoreline for a Sampdoria win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.61%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.17%) and 2-0 (7.46%). The likeliest Udinese win was 0-1 (7.62%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.82%). The actual scoreline of 3-3 was predicted with a 1.2% likelihood.
