For their second round of the 2015-16 Serie A campaign, Chievo are hoping to stall Empoli’s stunning run of form at the Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi on Sunday.
Rolando Maran’s side are hoping to occupy the upper half of the league table by winning this weekend, but will meet an Empoli outfit beaming with confidence since their last encounter.
Back in August, Chievo initiated a surprising start to their season by taking a 3-1 victory at the Stadio Castellani as Marco Giampaolo began his efforts to fill in Maurizio Sarri’s shoes.
The visitors are determined to exercise revenge in Verona this weekend since they only hold four wins to Chievo’s six in their 16 matches of head to head history.
Riccardo Saponara immediately repaid the faith that Empoli showed him by scoring inside 10 minutes since the club exercised their option to buy the player after his loan spell from AC Milan.
However, Riccardo Meggiorini, Valter Birsa and Alberto Paloschi had other ideas in the second half as the Gialloblu trio scored a flurry of goals within just 10 minutes at the restart.
Since their early season heroics, Chievo have been dealt plenty of blows on their way to mid table residence, but have begun showing signs of life again with three victories in their last five matches.
Empoli’s fates have long since been overturned from the early season defeat, as the Azzurri hit their stride recently with five victories in their last six league outings.
Giampaolo has proven his doubters well wrong to this point by guiding the club to seventh spot in the league on 30 points, and has only lost to the likes of Roma, Juventus, and Inter in recent months.
Opposing Italian strikers Alberto Paloschi and Massimo Maccarone have seven and eight goals respectively thus far, which provides a thrilling duel up front for the upcoming tie.
Missing out on the action this weekend for the home side are Mariano Izco, Alessandro Gamberini, and Riccardo Meggiorini, with the two Italians expected to recover soon from minor wounds.
Empoli are without the services of Lorenzo Tonelli at the back due to an injury picked up at the start of this year.
Form Guide: Chievo (W-W-L-D-W) Empoli (W-W-W-L-W)
Expected Starting XI’s
Chievo: Bizzarri; Gobbi, Dainelli, Cesar, Frey; Hetemaj, Radovanovic, Birsa, Castro; Paloschi, Pellissier
Empoli: Skorupski; Laurini, Barba, Costa, Mario Rui; Zielinski, Paredes, Buchel; Saponara; Pucciarelli, Maccarone
