Sassuolo v Spezia

Matchday 30 in Serie A kicks off with Spezia’s trip to Reggio Emilia to take on a Sassuolo side who will want to secure their place in the top half table.

The Neroverdi had won three on the trot under Alessio Dionisi but fluffed their lines away at Salernitana last weekend. Despite being 2-1 up at half time in Salerno, they only took a point from the game after Giacomo Raspadori’s red card and Milan Djuric’s equaliser with just under 10 minutes to go.

That is a disappointing result but their previous four include wins over Fiorentina and Inter as well as a draw against Roma. It is some of their best form in what has been a very inconsistent season and for that reason, they should have too much for this Spezia team who are still right in the relegation battle.

The Aquilotti are down in fifteenth right no but do very much have their fate in their own hands. That is largely because they ran out 2-0 winners over Cagliari last weekend who are also battling to avoid the drop to Serie B.

They were in horrendous form until that victory but even still, Sassuolo have so many tools that can hurt Spezia and it could only take one chance to win the game. Giacomo Raspadori will be suspended but the in-form Gianluca Scamacca and Hamed Traore will be seeking more goals along with Domenico Berardi.

Spezia may have enough about them to stay up this season, but this Sassuolo side look confident and should take all three points here.

Genoa v Torino

At this point, every Genoa game is going to be a draw. They’ve drawn their last seven Serie A matches and now they are coming up against an out-of-form Torino side, albeit one that took a point off of Inter last weekend.

Alexander Blessin has come into the job and certainly made the Grifone a harder team to beat but their situation was already too dire to just start drawing games. They are six points from safety and simply must start winning matches to stand any chance of survival.

The amount of draws shows that Blessin’s side do not have a cutting edge and they are unlikely to put more than one goal past anyone.Whilst Torino are a significantly better side than Genoa at the moment, they are also not the sort of team to score a shed load of goals in a game like this. They are 11th in the table but only six teams have scored less than them this season.

It’s unlikely to be a thrilling game and that’s because it would be very surprising if there are more than one or two goals. Four teams in Serie A have scored more goals than Genoa and Torino have combined. A draw or a narrow Torino win is the most likely outcome and either will push Genoa closer to a campaign in Serie B.

Napoli v Udinese

Napoli did extremely well to come away from last weekend’s match against Hellas Verona at the Bentegodi with all three points.

It’s a historically heated fixture and this time it came in the midst of a title race. The atmosphere was toxic and the players had to just get the job done. They looked calm and Victor Osimhen put in a big performance, burying two chances when they came his way.

That 2-1 victory took them to second in the Serie A table and now they need to carry that belief and confidence back to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona so that they can remain in the fight for a first Scudetto since 1990.

Home against Udinese is the sort of fixture that Luciano Spalletti will have wanted to help his team build a serious run of form again as they did at the beginning of the season.

It is likely to be creeping into the back of many Udinese players’ minds that they have done enough to avoid the drop, sitting eight points clear of eighteenth place with one or two games in hand over all the teams beneath them.

For that reason, Napoli are likely to do everything they can to take the lead early here through the likes of Victor Osimhen or Lorenzo Insigne. Then they’ll calm things down at hope to see the game out without any drama. The incentives for Udinese to throw themselves at the best defence in the league are minimal.

Inter v Fiorentina

Inter are now in a position where every single league game is absolutely huge. After the 5-0 win against Salernitana and the 1-0 win, albeit unimportant, against Liverpool, it seemed they may have climbed out of their post-Christmas slump.

Suddenly the 1-1 draw at Torino, which would have been a loss if it weren’t for Alexis Sanchez’s stoppage-time equaliser, has thrown them back into disarray. For the first time in 2022, the title is not in their own hands.

They’re third in Serie A and are four points behind AC Milan in first. The Nerazzurri do still have a game in hand to play in the coming weeks. Fiorentina are not the sort of team that Simone Inzaghi will have been hoping to come up against when three points are an absolute must.

La Viola have got plenty of attacking players that can hurt Inter and it seems that the home side will still be without Dutch defender Stefan de Vrij. Krzysztof Piatek is in a decent vein of form and the likes of Riccardo Sottil, Jonathan Ikone, Arthur Cabral and Nicolas Gonzalez will all be looking to end the season as strongly as possible.

That firepower and the decent form that Vincenzo Italiano’s team is in will be enough to concern Simone Inzaghi.That being said, he still has the likes of Edin Dzeko, Alexis Sanchez, Lautaro Martinez and the wing-backs to rely upon to grab his team some goals and that all-important victory.

Inter have to win, and Fiorentina will sense an opportunity for an upset. That could lead to lots of attacking play and plenty of goals.

Cagliari v AC Milan

AC Milan are starting to assert some dominance over the Serie A title and they will see this as a great opportunity to maintain their good form.

Cagliari have been on the up in recent weeks and given themself a decent chance of survival. That charge may have been derailed by a deeply disappointing 2-0 defeat away at fellow strugglers Spezia.

The main aim will be to frustrate Stefano Pioli’s team as much as possible and see what they can get from set pieces and on the break.

The Rossoneri will be very confident though and will know that they’ve got enough about them to go to Sardinia and take all three points. The likes of Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao are in fantastic form now and the defence is looking very good with Pierre Kalulu and Fikayo Tomori in form.

There is also the small matter of having Zlatan Ibrahimovic gradually returning to fitness, a player that any manager would love to be able to call upon when you’re in need of a goal.The three-point gap that AC Milan have on Napoli means that they are genuinely in control of the title race now. They look confident, assured, and fresh in comparison to many teams.

It might not be a hugely comfortable evening for them in Cagliari as it isn’t an easy place to go, but they will certainly back themselves to still be top at the end of the weekend.

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