Verona vs Napoli prediction: ITALY: Serie A betting tips on match 2022-08-14 16:30.
A third-successive top-half Serie A (SA) finish last season for Hellas Verona certainly isnāt to be sniffed at, but making the next step into the European places is proving to be problematic. Verona hope a ā¬20m+ outlay over the summer will help bridge that gap to the top seven, and manager Gabriele Cioffi will be keen to see his new recruits hit the ground running in a bid to end the three-match winless home SA run they finished last season with (D1, L2).
Verona potentially couldnāt have hand-picked a better opponent than Napoli to open the new campaign against, having only collected more SA wins against Cagliari and Fiorentina (14) than their 13 against Napoli. However, just one win from their last five home H2Hs against them (L4) suggests this game might not be the straightforward evening Verona fans will hope for to kick-start their season.
Despite being involved in the title race for the most part of last season, Napoli slumped to a third-place finish, though that was in fact their highest since 2019/20. Three-straight wins āto nilā closed-out last season for Napoli, and another such victory here would mark only the third time in history the āAzzurriā have won four successive SA games with an accompanying clean sheet.
However the high-profile departure of Kalidou Koulibaly to Chelsea leaves a gaping hole in the Napoli defence and raises questions of their credentials to secure that little piece of history here. Big money was spent on South Korean defender Kim Min-jae to plug that hole, and with Napoli taking the SA crown for away clean sheets last season (nine), all eyes will be on how he marshalls their usually dependable back-line.
Players to watch: Veronaās Kevin Lasagna has netted three SA goals against Napoli in his career, but has never been on the winning side in a personal SA H2H (D4, L6). Meanwhile, Napoliās Victor Osimhen netted either side of half-time the last time these two sides met.
Hot stat: Veronaās 15 SA goals in the opening 15 minutes was a league-high last season