Sunday Soccer Stats
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Serie A: Napoli v Roma (Sun, 19:45)
Napoli have slipped six points behind Roma following a run of just two wins in their last seven games. In the same time Roma have conceded just once and won five times. However, Roma’s form on the road is less impressive as they’ve scored just nine times in their last eight away matches whilst dropping points on five occasions. Roma will also be without Daniele De Rossi, and since 2010/11 he’s missed just seven of their 33 trips to top-half teams, which have resulted in five defeats and only one win.
Napoli have lost at home only once this season, and just twice since the start of 2012/13. Moreover, they were unbeaten at home against the top six finishers in each of the past two seasons, winning six of 10 matches with two of the draws coming against Juventus. A lot of Napoli’s recent problems have come as a result of being without one or both of Marek Hamsek and Gonazalo Higuain in five of their last six away matches (either through injury, suspension, or Rafa Benitez) as they dropped points in four of those five games. However, they are both expected to start here and 2.38 looks a very generous price for a home win.
Napoli have only twice failed to score at home since the start of last season and the only time they’ve not registered this season with Hamsek and Higuain in the team was away at Juventus. 13 of the last 21 away matches Roma have conceded in have had at least four goals (15/21 had at least three strikes). Seven of the last 10 meetings between these teams have had three or more goals, including this fixture in four of the last five seasons. Over 2.5 Goals looks fairly priced at 1.85 but since 2008/09 top-five teams have hosted top-three sides 64 times with just 47% having more than two goals and only 14% more than three. When changing the criteria to top-five and top-three finishers the number of over-goals matches drops even further. As it does when the match is in the second half of the season so we’ll avoid the goals markets.
Category: Football trading strategies
