Empoli vs Udinese prediction: ITALY: Serie A betting tips on match 2023-10-05 16:30.
After ending their goal drought of more than 570 minutes in Serie A (SA) football with a 1-0 home win over Salernitana, it was back to square one for Empoli who lost 3-0 to Bologna last weekend. The honeymoon of new manager Aurelio Andreazzo spanned just one match as the hosts succumbed to their seventh defeat of the season, prompting Andreazzoli to remark that the team “could have done more” in their last two matches.
It is still too early to speculate about relegation battles, but with only Cagliari keeping them from the bottom of the points table, the hosts need to find some form soon. They could hardly have asked for a better opponent to regain their form against, as Udinese are only one point better off, and a win here could see the hosts spend the following week out of the red zone.
Udinese managed to double their goal tally from their first six league games of the campaign, but that wasn’t enough to land three points as a 2-2 scrappy draw against Genoa kept them just above the bottom three. With coach Andrea Sottil walking a tightrope in his quest for a first win of this SA campaign, the visitors travel to a venue where they have won just once across their last five SA away H2Hs (D1, L3), a win that notably came in March this year.
The Bianconeri need to draw inspiration from that result as their away form this season (D2, L1) has been patchy at best. Napoli dismantled them 4-1 in their last away game, while their only beacon in front of goal remains Lazar Samardžić, who scored both their away goals in this campaign.
Players to watch: Empoli’s Francesco Caputo may not have a great record in personal H2Hs against Udinese (W1, D3, L7) but at least he was involved in three goals (G1, A2) across the last four such matches. Contrastingly, Udinese’s Roberto Pereyra has an unbeaten record against Empoli (W5, D1) with two goals to his name across those games.
Hot stat: Seven of the last ten SA H2Hs saw exactly one first-half goal scored, with Udinese claiming it on five occasions.