Sampdoria vs Sassuolo

February 7, 2015
By: Nemanja Lazarevic

Fresh from the 5-1 loss to Torino, Sampdoria hope to return to winning ways and revive their Champions League bid with a home win over Sassuolo. Neroverdi ended a barren run of results in style as they beat Inter Milan, but they arrive at Marassi without top three scorers and clearly face an uphill task in Genoa.

Time to make amends

Sampdoria have been making tremendous progress under Sinisa Mihajlovic, but not even the most optimistic of fans could have predicted such a successful season. The Blucerchiati have long ago climbed to European positions and they even stand a chance of mounting a challenge for the final Champions League berth. January purchase of Samuel Eto’o speaks volumes about how much the club’s profile was raised in the last year or so, and it appears that Sampdoria are on the road to return to old glory days. Following a string of impressive results, the Blucerchiati recorded the biggest loss of the season as they were hammered 5-1 by Torino, and they obviously need to produce an instant response if they are to remain close to the top of the standings. Even if they are without several important players, the hosts do have the quality and experience to see off severely weakened Sassuolo, and they won’t even have to be at their attacking best to emerge victorious on Sunday afternoon. Team’s 5-5-0 home record this season serves as another reason for optimism.

Matias Silvestre miss out through suspension, while Luis Muriel, Afriyie Acquah, Sergio Romero, Alessandro De Vittis, Luca Rizzo and Fabrizio Cacciatore are unavailable as well.

Star trio misses out

Just like their next opponents, Sassuolo have enjoyed a great deal of success over the last two years and with the club chiefs doing great business in every transfer window, it appears the Neroverdi are in Serie A to stay. The club have profited a great deal from excellent relations with Italy’s top sides, namely Juventus, with the likes of Simone Zaza and Domenico Berardi getting much needed playing time at Stadio Citta de Tricolore before they move on for greener pastures. It is the two attackers together with Nicola Sansone that have proved a real menace for opposition defenders and they are the ones that usually help Sassuolo record each good result. All three were on the scoresheet as the Neroverdi ended the poor run by beating Inter Milan last weekend, but none of them will be on the pitch at Marassi, so you can imagine what kind of loss that will be for the visitors. With the trio scoring 17 of Sassuolo’s 27 league goals this season, chances are Sampdoria’s job will be made a lot easier by their absence. It is hard to expect their back-ups Sergio Floccari, Antonio Floro Flores and Dejan Lazarevic will have any sort of impact in Genoa.

Simone Zaza, Nicolas Sansone and Domenico Berardi are all banned, whereas Saphir Taider, Gianluca Pegolo and Emanuele Terranova are out injured. Federico Peluso and Simone Missiroli face fitness tests.

Verdict

Judging by their performances this season, Sampdoria’s defeat to Torino was just a one-off and the Blucerchiati will be eager to return to winning ways this weekend. Sassuolo have done well on the road this season, but with three key men missing, the Neroverdi cannot be trusted to get anything from this match.

Top pick: Home win   1.83 (5/6) @ BetVictor

Alternative pick 1: Sampdoria to win to nil   3.00 (2/1) @ SkyBet

Alternative pick 2: Sampdoria/Sampdoria   2.88 (17/9) @ William Hill

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