Saturday evening features a Serie A clash between 7th placed Lazio and 8th placed Hellas Verona in an intriguing battle between two sides vying for a place in the top six of the Italian top flight.
It’s been a pretty reasonable campaign for Lazio as they’ve lost just three out of their 10 league matches to date this season.
They come into this upcoming encounter against Hellas Verona on the back of a useful 2-1 win away from home at 15th placed Spezia, so the hosts will be confident that they can tale something from this tussle.
Lazio’s start to the new season though was fairly disappointing as they’d managed to pick up just one win out of their opening four matches of the new term, in the shape of a 2-0 win at Cagliari, but also included defeats to Atalanta 4-1 and a 3-0 loss to Sampdoria.
There continues to be question marks over Lazio’s level of consistency but goals have flowed on a regular basis as six of their 10 matches have produced over 2.5 goals.
Hellas Verona sit just one league position and one point below their hosts prior to this Saturday’s important clash at the Stadio Olimpico after being held to a 1-1 draw at home by Cagliari, but the visitors have lost just twice all season to date.
However, dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Hellas Verona have been extremely dependent upon gaining results in Serie A on home turf at their Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi, where they’ve won three of their four wins so far this season.
With just three away wins out of their last 19 matches on their travels, the chances of an away win here for Hellas Verona seem remote but the visitors do at least pose a threat in front of goal as they’ve scored in 14 of these last 19 matches on the road, which represents almost a 74% hit-rate.
Four of the previous six meetings between these two teams have produced over 2.5 goals with the last clash producing a six-goal haul as Lazio beat Hellas Verona 5-1 away from home back in July of last season.