On Monday evening in Serie A, Cagliari will welcome Chievo to the Stadio Sant’ Elia with both sides desperate for points, as they are currently languishing near the foot of the table and have each only achieved one victory in their last eight games.
Zdenek Zeman’s men are coming off the back of a humiliating 4-0 home defeat at the hands of Fiorentina and are also the only team in Serie A who are still yet to achieve a home victory.
This poor start to the season has left the Sardinian side 17th in Serie A, positioned one place above the Veronese outfit. However they will take confidence from their exhausting midweek victory on penalties over Modena in the fourth round of the Coppa Italia.
Chievo have also had a very disappointing start to the season, having only taken 10 points from 13 games, however they will hope that their hard fought 0-0 draw against Lazio last week will kick-start their stuttering campaign.
Ceo will gain also confidence from their impressive form against the Isolani last season when they took four points out of a possible six after drawing 0-0 at home and obtaining a 1-0 victory at the Stadio Sant’Elia.
To finally end their winless streak at home, the veteran coach will hope that his engrained attacking philosophy will be able to break down Chievo’s defensive style of play. If Cagliari are to infiltrate the Chievo defence then they will hope that the current attacking combination of Diego Farias and Victor Ibarbo can increase their tally of a combined five goals.
The Rossoblu are still missing their joint top scorer Marco Sau who is still struggling with a muscle problem so it is likely that versatile midfielder Andrea Cossu will complete the attacking trio
Chievo coach Rolando Maran has no fresh injury concerns for the upcoming match, however it should be interesting to see whether he sticks with Albano Bizzari in goal after his recent good form or reverts back to on loan goalkeeper Francesco Bardi.
When selecting his side for the match, Zeman will surely have to consider their draining midweek victory over Modena when a large number of his first team players were forced to play the entire 120 minutes.
This will be somewhat of an advantage for Maran’s side who had already been eliminated from the Coppa Italia and have had a full week to recover from their previous league game against Lazio.
This lower league clash will be an intriguing contest between two sides who are in desperate need of picking up a victory, even more interesting will be to see who prevails between Zeman’s attacking mindset and Maran’s defensive set-up.
Expected Starting XIs
Cagliari: Cragno; Pisano, Rossettini, Ceppettelli, Balzano; Conti, Crisetig, Dessena; Cossu, Farias, Ibarbo
Chievo: Bizzarri; Zukanovic, Gamberini, Dainelli, Frey; Birsa, Hetemaj, Radovanovic, Izco; Meggiorini, Paloschi
