Napoli vs Fiorentina Prediction and Betting Preview 18 Jan 2020

Here's our Napoli vs Fiorentina Prediction analysis:

Napoli v Fiorentina Prediction and Preview for Saturday's Serie A fixture. Two underwhelming Serie A sides will be battling it out for maximum points on Saturday evening, when Napoli welcome Fiorentina to the Stadio San Paolo for a crunch clash. The home side will be looking to build on their Coppa Italia success last time out with victory over La Viola.

Match status: 2019/20 Serie A - Matchweek 20
Kick-off: Saturday 18 Jan 2020, 08:45pm CET
 Venue: Stadio San Paolo (Naples)

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Tipped by the media as worthy challengers for the Serie A title, Napoli have gone about their campaign in meagre fashion, sitting 11^th on the standings. They have amassed a measly 24 points from 19 games so far.

Perennial Champions League qualifiers, this season has seen the Parthenopean endure one of their worst campaigns in the club’s trophy-laden history. With Carlo Ancelotti booted out of the club some weeks back, the mantle of reviving Napoli’s season has been vested on Gennaro Gattuso.

An exciting and entertaining game on the cards, expect goals at both ends of the pitch, with the home side emerging victors via a narrow win margin.

Napoli v Fiorentina Team News

Last time out in the league, Napoli fell to a late narrow lone-goal defeat to Lazio, David Ospina gifting Simone Inzaghi’s men the victory with a humiliating error in goal. The Colombian international will be kicking himself for making such a howler at the Stadio Olimpico.

The game seemed destined for a goalless draw before Ospina put the ball into his own net, to gift Lazio the victory on a silver platter. Following the loss, Gli Azzurri have now been condemned to back-to-back defeats, and a fourth loss in their last six outings.

Despite the loss at Lazio, the travelling supporters must have headed home with lots of positives to take from the game. The fact that they were able to keep this goal-friendly Lazio attack at bay for most parts of the game is a plus for the defense.

More impressively, they achieved this feat without their best center-back pairing of Koulibaly and Maksimovic. Gli Azzurri were so sturdy in defense that they limited goal-hungry Lazio to just seven shots on target.

Fiorentina, on the other hand, laid blood and sweat bare on the pitch, on the last match-day to grind out a hard-fought 1-0 victory over basement club SPAL. The win ultimately put an end to their mediocre eight-game winless streak in the league.

To be fair, SPAL put in a performance of the highest quality and deserved to have salvaged a positive result. However, it was not just to be for Leonardo Semplici’s men as they were condemned to yet another defeat.

With mother luck on their side, Fiorentina managed to seal the victory, which is really all that matters. They will be heading into this weekend’s fixture on the back of a narrow 2-1 win over tough customers Atalanta in the Coppa Italia.

For this fixture, the Stadio San Paolo factor is very likely to come into play this Saturday. The home side have perfected the craft of carving out maximum points when playing on this ground. With the nook and crannies of this stadium at the back of their palm, Gattuso’s men are slight favorites to come away with the win.

Injured or Suspended Players:

Napoli: Kevin Malcuit, Faouzi Ghoulam, Kalidou Koulibaly, Nikola Maksimovic, Dries Mertens, Alex Meret, Mário Rui.

Fiorentina: Franck Ribéry.

Pre-Match Odds:

Napoli - 1.67
Draw - 4.14
Fiorentina - 5.50

All odds are with 1xBet and are subject to change.

All odds are for Napoli vs Fiorentina Predictions with 1xBet and are subject to change.

Napoli vs Fiorentina Predictions

As mentioned earlier, both sides have been underwhelming this season. So far, Napoli have fared much worse than they did last season. In fact, at this same stage, they had picked up twenty more points last season than they have managed this time around.

However, following their narrow loss to Lazio last time out, the Blues will be itching to return to winning ways. Count on Gattuso’s men to edge this one out, perhaps by a narrow win margin.