Juventus have been in very impressive form and racked up the goals in recent home fixtures against Cagliari, something they’ll be keen to keep going on Saturday night (kick-off 20:45).
PROBABLE LINE-UPS
Juventus (3-4-1-2): Buffon; Demiral, De Ligt, Danilo; Cuadrado, Arthur, Rabiot, Chiesa; Kulusevski; Ronaldo, Morata.
Unavailable: Chiellini, Bonucci, Ramsey.
Cagliari (4-2-3-1): Cragno; Zappa, Walukiewicz, Klavan, Tripaldelli; Marin, Rog; Ounas, Joao Pedro, Sottil; Simeone.
Unavailable: Tripaldelli, Pinna, Ceppitelli, Faragò, Luvumbo, Lykogiannis, Godin, Nandez.
KEY STATISTICS
– After a streak of 18 Serie A matches without defeat against Cagliari (W15 D3), Juventus lost last time out in this fixture in July: only in November 2009 have the Bianconeri lost two games in a row against the Sardinians in the top flight.
– Juventus have scored at least three goals in each of their last four home league matches against Cagliari: the last team to concede 3+ goals in at least five consecutive away Serie A matches against the Bianconeri was Padova between 1930 and 1955 (eight matches).
– Juventus will start matchday eight from outside the top two positions for the first time since the 2015/16 season, when they were 12th at the start of that matchday.
– Cagliari have won three of their last four league games (L1): over the last four matchdays, only Roma (10) have picked up more points in Serie A than the Sardinians (nine).
– Juventus have drawn four of their seven league games this season – the Bianconeri could draw five of their first eight Serie A matches in a campaign for the first time since 1978/79.
– Cagliari have conceded the most shots on target in the top five European leagues in this calendar year (171); in this period, Alessio Cragno is the only goalkeeper to have made more than 100 saves (103).
– Juventus have conceded only one goal in the first 30 minutes of games this season, the joint–fewest of any side. In addition, the Bianconeri have conceded the fewest goals in the second half (two).
– Cristiano Ronaldo has scored six goals in four league games this season: in the three points for a win era, the only Juventus player that has netted more after five appearances in a season is Paulo Dybala in 2017/18 (eight goals).
– Cagliari’s Giovanni Simeone is close to scoring his 50th goal in Serie A (49) – he could reach this milestone at the age of 25 years and 139 days, the only Argentinians to achieve this milestone at a younger age in Serie A are Mauro Icardi, Paulo Dybala and Hernan Crespo.
– In 2020 both João Pedro and Simeone have scored 12 goals in Serie A: the only South Americans to have netted more in this period in the top five European leagues are Lionel Messi (15) and Duván Zapata (14) – moreover, excluding penalties no other South American player scored more than Simeone (12).
