A Palermo side who’re looking more and more likely to be playing their football in Italy’s second tier next season face another tough task on Sunday evening as they travel to take on Udinese at Stadio Friuli.
The hosts haven’t exactly enjoyed the best of campaigns themselves, but they’ve thrived against teams who’re residing at the foot of the table and come into this fixture off the back of a pleasing 3-1 victory last time out. With this win behind them, not to mention a point against soon to be Champions Juventus, Udinese are fancied to follow up with another victory. The two bets that stands out are ‘Udinese to Win & Over 1.5 Goals’ and ‘Udinese to Score Over 1.5 Goals’.
It would be wrong to say that Udinese have had a decent season – at best it’s been an average showing from the Udine club. However, they have done a fared a bit better at home and have found it fairly easy to beat the divisions’ struggling teams. In front of their own fans, Luigi Delneri’s side have taken maximum points when playing any of the current bottom four, beating Empoli, Crotone and Pescara with relative comfort, scoring seven and conceding just one in the process. In addition, the home side come into this match having beaten the aforementioned Pescara 3-1 away from home in their last match. It’s fair to say, even though they’ve been unable to sustain a position inside the top half, Udinese have made light work of beating the Serie A strugglers so far this season.
As far as Palermo are concerned, this season has been a washout. The club from Sicily are currently seven points from safety and, having shown little in the way of improvement, look to be on their way down to Serie B. Playing on the road has been a real struggle for the visitors this season, although playing at home certainly hasn’t been a picnic either! Luis Diego López’s men have won just two of their away matches and are currently on a win-less run of five. Of the eight games that they’ve lost on their travels, Palermo have conceded at least twice in seven, letting in two or more in eight of their last ten away matches.
Given the useless nature of Palermo’s defending this season, the hosts will know that this is a major opportunity for them to both collect three points and add considerably to their goal tally. When the pair met in the reverse fixture, Udinese registered a 3-1 victory and, now back in front of a home crowd, are fancied to put in a similar display.
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