BENEVENTO-ATALANTA
Benevento: the contribution of the regular strikers remains a little wanting for the Sanniti, but they are churning out good results anyway. Marco Sau took full advantage of a spot start to punish his old team Cagliari, scoring for the second time in the past four rounds, while their other recent goals were bagged by Gaetano Letizia, who is hurt, Gianluca Caprari and Roberto Insigne. Gianluca Lapadula has not scored since early November, so Caprari is now their leading scorer with four goals, plus he has added three assists, like Insigne. The duo, plus the always fizzy Riccardo Improta and usually back-up striker Sau are their most in-form men.
Recommended picks: Caprari, Insigne, Improta.
Atalanta: their attack has been raining hellfire in the recent matches and most of their top players are contributing with regularity. Luis Muriel has hit the net five times in the past four matches, Duvan Zapata four in the same stretch, Robin Gosens four in the last six, plus one assist. Josip Ilicic has chipped in with few assists, Matteo Pessina with a goal of his own. Basically, they have re-calibrated their designs without Papu Gomez and are humming. Moreover, Ruslan Malinovskyi and Aleksey Miranchuk will eventually make their presences felt. Remo Freuler has set up three goals in Serie A play.
Recommended picks: Zapata, Muriel, Gosens.
ROMA-INTER
Roma: they spared some starters but still defeated Crotone quite handedly, propelled by a fantastic brace by Borja Mayoral and a penalty kick by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who also picked up an assist to move to eight and seven in the two categories. Edin Dzeko and Jordan Veretout, who have both notched seven goals, will be back in the XI in this one and Lorenzo Pellegrini will play in an appealing role since Pedro is hurt. Mayoral’s outburst should earn him more regular minutes and it is not like they are particularly deep. Rick Karsdorp has been quite the weapon recently as they have leaned more on him sans Leonardo Spinazzola.
Recommended picks: Dzeko, Mkhitaryan, Veretout.
Inter: with Romelu Lukaku limited by an injury, they were unable to capitalize on their chances versus Sampdoria, as Alexis Sanchez missed a PK and Lautaro Martinez was too wasteful despite multiple attempts. The Belgian ace was still able to play some minutes, so he will be a full go in this one and will look to add to his stats as he has scored 12 times already. El Toro has moved to nine goals with the recent hat-trick, while Achraf Hakimi is in splendid shape with two goals and one assist in the last four rounds, with some really dominating performances. Marcelo Brozovic has provided three assists in a row, while Ashely Young and Nicolò Barella, who have had some productive stretches in the past, have been rather quite for few weeks in a row.
Recommended picks: Lukaku, Martinez, Hakimi.
MILAN-TORINO
Milan: the absences, and the quality of the opponents, ultimately proved to be too much to overcome versus Juventus, but they still were not outplayed. Davide Calabria filled in out of position in the midfield, and scored, but Sandro Tonali will be back from suspension in this one. The coach left the door open for the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but it will go down to the wire. It would surely be a big boost since they lost Ante Rebic to COVID. Rafael Leao has registered two goals in recent rounds, four total in the season, while Hakan Calhanoglu, their unquestioned creative leader, opened his seasonal tally versus Lazio and has provided seven assists already. Brahim Diaz has generally been livelier than Jens Petter Hauge among their back-ups, while Samu Castillejo is pretty pedestrian. One of the youngsters will inevitably have to step up if also Calhanoglu is out with an injury. Franck Kessie has hit the net five times thanks to few penalties, while Theo Hernandez (four goals, three assists) will be eager to bounce back after a rough performance.
Recommended picks: Leao, Hernandez, Diaz/Calhanoglu.
Torino: a late goal by defender Bremer prevented them from losing and on open play they struggled to crack Verona’s defense, which is the norm for most sides. Marco Giampaolo went back to using Sasa Lukic as no.10, with Amer Gojak, who had scored two matches ago, as technical box-to-box, but Simone Verdi looked more effective there in his limited minutes off the bench. Simone Zaza was excluded from the squad list so it looks like they have moved on from him. The other candidate for the role is Federico Bonazzoli (one goal). Andrea Belotti has gone cold as he has not hit bullseye in the past four rounds, but he has notched two assists in such stretch (five total in the campaign) and he is by far their leading scorer.
Recommended picks: Belotti, Verdi, Lukic.
UDINESE-NAPOLI
Udinese: after few assists, Roberto Pereyra finally managed to punch one home for the first time in the season, then Tolgay Arslan bagged his second one thanks to a deflected shot. They surely need all the goals they can get having lost their top man Ignacio Pussetto for the rest of the campaign due to an ACL tear and the other forwards have yet to get going, while Stefano Okaka and Gerard Deulofeu are out with less severe injuries. Kevin Lasagna, Fernando Forestieri and Ilija Nestorovski will have few more chances to find some consistency and they are on the radar for the big role, but their more appealing options lie in the midfield thanks to Pereyra and Rodrigo De Paul (three goals, two assists).
Recommended picks: Pereyra, De Paul, Lasagna.
Napoli: Gennaro Gattuso shook things up with Hirving Lozano as false-nine versus Spezia, but the move did not really pan out as El Chucky did not look super comfortable and missed a pair of sitters. Andrea Petagna, who had not taken advantage of three consecutive starts, scored off the bench, ending a four-match drought. Lorenzo Insigne (six goals) and Matteo Politano (three goals) had their chances but it was one of those days. Both Lozano and Insigne had delivered in the slump-busting match versus Cagliari in the previous weekend, where Piotr Zielinski dominated, but he put up a dud midweek and consistency is not his forte. Giovanni Di Lorenzo dished his third assist of the year.
Recommended picks: Insigne, Lozano, Petagna.
JUVENTUS-SASSUOLO
Juventus: Federico Chiesa put the team on his back in the Milan game, assembling a sterling brace and his numbers (four goals, four assists) are starting to look very good. Cristiano Ronaldo (14 goals) had a day off, while Paulo Dybala and Dejan Kulusevski both came through with superb assists and they will lean on them again if Alvaro Morata remains shelved. They have not been very consistent, but they both have multiple goals in the seasons and found the target once in the last month. Aaron Ramsey is alternating convincing showings to subpar ones, while Weston McKennie (two goals, two assists) always has it going.
Recommended picks: Ronaldo, Chiesa, Dybala.
Sassuolo: they lost Domenico Berardi in the first half and Francesco Caputo was easily engulfed, but Jeremie Boga came to the rescue versus Genoa with a good-looking goal and an assist for Giacomo Raspadori. The speedster had not made a peep in the past seven appearances, while the youngster had yet to score in the season. It would be a huge problem if Berardi was forced to miss time, but at least they have a couple more in-form contributors and Boga can be very streaky. Filip Djuricic has not gotten out of his slump, while Hamed Traore has been peppier: the two could feature together if their cornerstone will not be absent. Manuel Locatelli served a great assist against the Grifone.
Recommended picks: Boga, Traore, Caputo.
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