Juventus-Frosinone: the Bianconeri quickly bounced back in Sassuolo after the 3-3 draw with Parma and have won four times in the last five fixtures, fortifying their lead in the standings. The Ciociari have been pesky recently and they are coming off a surprise win over Sampdoria, their second in a row on the road, and they are now within striking distance from the 17th spot. With Champions League just around the corner, Cristiano Ronaldo might be rested for the second time in Serie A, which would mean more scoring opportunities for Mario Mandzukic, Federico Bernardeschi and Paulo Dybala, or whoever will compose the front-line. Ronaldo has been running amok the last few matches, while la Joya seems due for a goal after a rough stretch. Sami Khedira has re-emerged as a big threat after an injury-ridden first half of the season. As for the Gialloblù, Camillo Ciano has been their leader all season long and they are getting solid returns from whoever starts alongside him as centre-forward, either Daniel Ciofani or Andrea Pinamonti. Their flank game, powered by Andrea Beghetto and Francesco Zampano, is a strong suit.
Atalanta-Milan: the Goddess remedied with a strong second half to what had gone down in the first one versus SPAL and came out victorious for the fourth time in the last four games, surging in the standings. The Rossoneri had one of their best performances of the season versus Cagliari and have been undefeated for six rounds, sharing the spoils in half of them. Duvan Zapata quickly returned to the scoresheet on Sunday and remains one of the hottest striker in the League, but the Devil’s back-line has been very sturdy recently. Josip Ilicic and Alejandro Gomez are not as consistent, but they can do damage on their day, even though El Papu now plays in a position that drags him away from the goal. They have gotten a lot in the scoring department by defenders, either on set pieces or with one fullback finishing on other’s feeds. As for the guests, Krzysztof Piatek continues to be on a warpath and Lucas Paquetà’s good run culminated in a goal in the last weekend. Hakan Calhanoglu had few chances but missed them, while Suso seems to have gone back to focusing more on creating rather than scoring.
Inter-Sampdoria: it was not overly impressive, but the Nerazzurri put together a convincing second half in Parma and Lautaro Martinez’s goal allowed them to both win and score for the first time in four attempts in 2019. The Blucerchiati have suddenly stopped garnering good results as they were stomped on by Napoli and then were caught by surprise by Frosinone at home last week, therefore losing a lot of momentum. Since Mauro Icardi’s status is as uncertain as it could be after being stripped of the captaincy armand, El Toro is the Beneamata’s striker to rely on, even though he is not a regular yet and at times has had some aim issues. Ivan Perisic and Radja Nainggolan are beginning to play better, even though they are not at their best levels yet. They will have Matteo Politano back and likely Balde Keita too, so the coach could have the full array of weapons at his disposal. Fabio Quagliarella has not hit the net in the last two games, which feels like forever after his amazing streak. His supporting cast, Gaston Ramirez, Riccardo Saponara, Manolo Gabbiadini and Gregoire Defrel, is always a little seesawing, which makes them more inconsistent than how their overall quality indicates.
Napoli-Torino: the Partenopei dropped points for the third road game in a row, this time they were unable to break through in Florence despite few juicy chances. They have won five straight on their own turf. The Granata have been beaten only by Roma in their last seven games and have prevailed in two of the last three. Arkadiusz Milik is likely to return to the XI in this one and he has been very prolific in the last month, while Lorenzo Insigne and José Callejon found the target recently and the Spaniard in particularly is faring excellently as of late Piotr Zielinski and Fabian Ruiz might be able to bring some goals out of the midfield. Torino’s strikers, Andrea Belotti, Iago Falque and Simone Zaza, have never found any continuity and the Rooster has the highest tally with his seven goals. However, they are very stout and often able to find occasional goals from centre-backs, wing backs, Ola Aina, Armando Izzo and Cristian Ansaldi were the latest to pitch in there, and midfielders, Tomas Rincon and Daniele Baselli in particular, which works but makes them not a very appealing team fantasy-wise.
Roma-Bologna: after drawing with Atalanta and Milan, the Giallorossi soundly defeated Chievo on the road. They have not lost since December 22nd and collected four Ws after that. The Felsinei picked up four points in the two matches with Sinisa Mihajlovic at the helm against Inter and Genoa. La Lupa is humming offensively now that Edin Dzeko has resumed scoring, Stephan El Shaarawy is up and running and Nicolò Zaniolo is raining hellfire on opponents. Aleksandar Kolarov has been their best weapon outside of the trio. They have bagged multiple goals in five of their last six fixtures. As for the Rossoblù, Mattia Destro snapped out of his lengthy slump and will likely alternate with Federico Santander moving forward. They will not have Rodrigo Palacio, so it will be Nicola Sansone and Simone Edera on the flanks and they could be pretty effective if they will have the room to counter.
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