Giampiero Ventura’s stuttering Torino side will be looking to end their season on a high as they welcome already relegated Cesena to the Stadio Olimpico in Serie A’s final round of fixtures this coming Sunday.
The weekend’s hosts will be keen to exorcise the demons haunting them following their embarrassing 3-0 defeat at the hands of Italy’s crisis club – AC Milan – in the penultimate round of Serie A fixtures.
Before their shock loss to the Rossoneri, Il Toro had been on the wrong end of an even more humiliating thrashing as they slumped to a 5-1 defeat by Genoa, with just a very much expected 2-0 win over Chievo separating the two crushing defeats.
Sunday’s visitors, rather luckily for Ventura, have been experiencing some problems of their own of late. The club were relegated with weeks of action remaining and have not claimed a point since their 2-2 draw at home to Atalanta on April 29, while they have not earned a point on the road since April 18 when they held Sampdoria to a scoreless draw at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
Before this season, the two sides had not met in the league since their Serie B meetings in the 2009/10 season, both of which ended in a 1-1 draw.
The Granata do have the edge over their guests in terms of previous meetings, with the most recent clash between the two sides seeing the Olimpico side run out 3-2 winners thanks to a Maxi Lopez strike with just three minutes left to play, after the Cavallucci Marini had fought back from 2-0 behind to be on level terms going into the game’s final minutes.
Ventura will have a few concerns going into the game, as Fabio Quagliarella, Maxi Lopez, Alexander Farnerud, Cesare Bovo, Luca Castellazzi and Pontus Jansson will all sit the game out with injuries, while Cristian Molinaro is suspended.
Domenico Di Carlo will have some selection headaches of his own, as he will be forced to do without the suspended Emmanuel Cascione.
As well as this, Di Carlo has a queue of players in the treatment room which includes Guido Marilungo, Nico Pulzetti, Luigi Giorgi, Luca Valzania, Carlos Carbonero and Riccardo Cazzola, who will all miss out.
Form Guide: Torino (L-W-L-L-D-W) Cesena (L-L-L-L-D-L)
Expected Starting XIs
Torino: Ichazo; Maksimovic, Glik, Moretti; Darmian, Vives, Gazzi, El Kaddouri, Bruno Peres; Martinez, Rosso.
Cesena: Agliardi; Capelli, Lucchini, Krajnc, Renzetti; De Feudis, Ze Eduardo; Defrel, Brienza, Dal Monte; Rodriguez.
