Carpi – Empoli. Mark O’Haire’s prediction

Carpi have lowered their cheapest ticket prices to just €3 to ensure a big crowd at their Stadio Alberto Braglia base for this crucial clash in their fight for survival.

Fabrizio Castori’s men upset the odds to pick up a well-earned 0-0 draw at the San Siro against Milan on Thursday night despite resting and rotating their squad, with this contest in mind. The Biancorossi boss is expected to return to his standard 4-4-1-1 formation here with a full squad to select from.

It’s now just two losses in nine for Carpi (W3-D4-L2) – the most in-form side amongst the relegation battlers – but with Palermo picking up maximum points at Frosinone on Sunday, the hosts know they must get something here with a trip to Juventus to follow next week.

Empoli have seen off both Fiorentina and Verona in Tuscany but on their travels the Azzurri have taken just two points from a possible 21 (W0-D2-L5) now, including four successive losses. Admittedly, those four defeats were against tough opposition and Marco Giampaolo’s men have flourished against the league’s lesser lights.

The visitors have W7-D5-L3 when taking on bottom-half teams, including W5-D2-L1 on the road, and are accustomed to controlling the pace of the game so Carpi may have to feed off counter-attacks to hurt the Tuscans here.

Like Empoli, Carpi have excelled against Serie A’s lesser lights, especially at home (W5-D3-L1) but can I justifiably say they deserve to be odds-on here? No.

Both Teams To Score has been chalked up at 1.91 and has proven profitable in 13/17 (76%) of Carpi’s home encounters, as well as 9/17 (53%) of Empoli’s road trips – giving us a very healthy 64.5% average success-rate that implies betting odds of 1.62. So I’ll happily snap up the big value on BTTS.