Sampdoria welcome Sassuolo to the Stadio Luigi Ferraris on Sunday at 15:00 CET in Serie A hoping that their new signings can help them to get back on track in the hunt for third place.
The Blucerchiati recruited no less than seven new players in the January transfer window, bringing in Samuel Eto’o, Luis Muriel, Joaquin Correa, Andrea Coda, Afriyie Acquah, Ezequiel Munoz and Alberto Frison to make them by far Italy’s busiest team in the market.
Coach Sinisa Mihajlovic will be hoping that they can kick start his team again after an inconsistent run of two wins, two draws and two losses in their last six games, including an embarrassing 5-1 drubbing at Torino last Sunday.
This, along with rumours of Eto’o storming out of training on Monday, have put a dampener on Samp’s impressive season so far, but sitting just five points off third place in fifth, Mihajlovic knows that a god run starting with victory on Sunday can propel them back into contention for Champions League qualification.
Samp face Sassuolo this weekend who sit just six points behind their hosts in 11th, buoyed from last week’s fantastic 3-1 home win over Inter.
They will however be without all three of their goalscorers from that game; Simone Zaza, Nicola Sansone and Domenico Berardi, all of whom are suspended.
The attacking trio will be a big miss having scored 17 of the Neroverdi’s 27 goals in Serie A this season, and are expected to be replaced by Saphir Taider, Antonio Floro Flores and Sergio Floccari, who by contrast have contributed just five goals between them.
New signings Dejan Lazarevic and Anastasios Denis are expected to be on the bench, while Emanuele Terranova is out until the end of the season due to an injury picked up against Inter and will be replaced by the returning Francesco Acerbi.
For Sampdoria Alfred Duncan and new signing Andrea Coda look set to replace Stefano Okaka and the suspended Matias Silvestre, while other new signings Eto’o, Munoz, Correa and Frison will all have to make do with a place on the bench, with Luis Muriel out injured and Afriyie Acquah at the African Cup of Nations.
A Domenico Berardi hat-trick helped Sassuolo to a 4-3 win in this fixture last season, but in the absence of Sassuolo’s biggest attacking threats and Samp’s patchy form, a repeat of this season’s 0-0 in September’s reverse fixture may be a better bet.
Form Guide: Sampdoria (D-L-W-W-D-L) Sassuolo (D-W-D-D-L-W)
Expected Starting XIs:
Sampdoria: Viviano, De Silvestri, Coda, Romagnoli, Regini, Palombo, Duncan, Obiang, Soriano, Bergessio, Eder
Sassuolo: Consigli, Vrsaljko, Cannavaro, Acerbi, Longhi, Biondini, Magnanelli, Taider, Missiroli, Floccari, Floro Flores
