Top-four contenders AS Roma and Napoli are hoping for a boost to their Serie A campaign on Saturday, when the two sides meet at the Olympic Stadium in Rome. Last season Napoli managed to grab a spectacular 4-1 victory at AS Roma, after the reverse fixture had ended 1-1. Napoli have won three of the last six direct matches while Roma have won two, but there is something quite curious about this head-to-head record: all these victories were away from home. The last time Roma won a home match against Napoli was in 2016.
AS Roma are unbeaten in their last seven matches in all competitions, but they have won just three of those seven games. However, now they are on a two-game winning streak in Serie A, last week they defeated AC Milan 2-1 while this week they grabbed a comfortable 4-0 victory at Udinese, despite having defender Federico Fazio sent off after just 32 minutes. The Argentinian centre-back is now suspended, while Davide Zappacosta, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Amadou Diawara, Nikola Kalinic and Bryan Cristante are all injured.
Napoli have their own seven-game unbeaten streak going on, and they also have just three wins out of those seven matches. They do have a slight victory drought to worry about after two consecutive Serie A draws, 1-1 at Spal last week and 2-2 at home against Atalanta on Wednesday. Elseid Hysaj, Kevin Malcuit and Allan are injured for the visitors, but Kostas Manolas should be able to play against his former side after having missed the last three competitive matches due to an injury.
Probable line-ups:
Roma: Lopez - Spinazzola, Cetin, Smalling, Kolarov - Mancini, Veretout - Zaniolo, Pastore, Kluivert - Dzeko
Napoli: Meret - Lorenzo, Maksimovic, Koulibaly, Rui - Callejon, Ruiz, Zielinski, Insigne - Mertens, Milik
My prediction:
These two teams will most likely extend their unbeaten runs with a draw in this match, I expect it to end 1-1.
Here are the odds for the match at NetBet:
Roma win - 2.65
Draw - 3.50
Napoli win - 2.50
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