Cagliari vs Napoli prediction: ITALY: Serie A betting tips on match 2024-02-24 14:00.
Only Salernitana are keeping Cagliari off the foot of the Serie A table, but as bleak as that may sound, they begin the round within a point of safety. They missed the chance to climb out of the drop zone with a 1-1 draw against Udinese last time out, but having fallen behind early in that game, they’ll have been content to take the point that ended their four match losing league run.
With opponents Napoli in midweek action, Cagliari have had extra time to prepare – time they’ll certainly have needed given their wretched H2H record across the last 25 Serie A meetings (W1, D7, L17). You’d have to go back to 2009 for the last time Cagliari won a home H2H (D4, L8 since), and on the back of successive home league defeats this season, few could rule out their misery prolonging here.
Francesco Calzona was handed a baptism of fire as Napoli boss, with his first game in charge coming in the form of a 1-1 draw with Barcelona in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League last 16 tie. With the second leg over two weeks away, Napoli can now focus solely on their league campaign, where they desperately need to close the gap on the European chasers as they bid to avoid the ignominy of failing to even qualify for Europe in their title-defending season.
Incredibly, the Partenopei are a whopping 29 points worse off than they were at this stage last season, which is perhaps unsurprisingly the worst title defence after 24 games in the three points per win Serie A era. There’s no guarantee things will get better here either, as Napoli travel on the back of four defeats from their last five Serie A away games (D1), failing to score in all five!
Players to watch: Cagliari’s Gianluca Gaetano has scored in his last two Serie A games and he’ll hope to make it three in a row for the first time this season against the club he’s on loan from! Scorer in midweek, Napoli will hope for more of the same from Victor Osimhen, who has scored once in all four of his personal meetings with Cagliari, three of which opened the scoring.
Hot stat: Cagliari haven’t scored a single first-half goal across the last 14 H2Hs.