Serie A Gameweek 21 caps off with a bottom-half clash between Salernitana and Juventus at the Stadio Arechi on Tuesday night.
First-half strikes from Boulaye Dia and Tonny Vilhena propelled the Granata to a 2-1 win at Lecce last weekend, ending their woeful seven-game winless league run (D2, L5).
Despite posting their first Serie A win since the end of October, Davide Nicola’s men don’t have time to celebrate, with 18th-placed Hellas Verona still within a touching eight-point distance.
If they’re to avoid being sucked back into a dreaded relegation battle, Salernitana will have to improve their showings against teams ranked better than them at the start of this round.
Yet to win such a match-up this season, the hosts will hope to turn their fortunes around against a subdued Juventus side, whose hopes of securing European football are rapidly fading away.
Massimiliano Allegri’s side have been slow to recover from a 15-point deduction, following up a 3-3 draw against sixth-placed Atalanta with an underwhelming 2-0 home loss to Monza last time out.
Juventus at least did a fine job to bounce back from another lacklustre Serie A performance as Gleison Bremer’s header fired them to a 1-0 win over Lazio in midweek Coppa Italia action.
While reaching the semi-finals for the fourth season on the trot may bolster the visitors’ spirits, a staggering 15-point deficit on sixth-placed AC Milan practically rules them out of the race for European placings.
Match Preview
Salernitana
Salernitana could win back-to-back matches in Serie A for the first time since October, but they’ll have to defy their dreadful top-flight H2H record against Juventus to achieve that feat.
Except for a 1-0 win at this venue in 1999, they have gone winless in their six remaining encounters against the Bianconeri in Serie A (D2, L4), including a 2-0 defeat in this corresponding fixture last season.
Scoring first could tilt the scales in their favour, with Nicola’s side going unbeaten in all four home league outings after breaking the deadlock in 2022/23 (W3, D1).
Juventus
Following an outrageous stretch of eight consecutive league wins ‘to nil,’ Juventus have alternated between losing and drawing (D1, L2) in their last three top-flight games, conceding ten times in the process.
Having had to fight back from a 2-0 half-time deficit to hold Salernitana to a 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture in September, Allegri’s men cannot afford to underestimate their hosts’ scoring potential.
With Dusan Vlahovic back to full fitness after a long-term injury, Juventus should be confident about addressing their own scoring woes and avoiding back-to-back scoring blanks in Serie A for the first time since 2012.
Salernitana vs Juventus Potential Line-ups
Salernitana (4-3-3): Guillermo Ochoa; Domagoj Bradaric, Dylann Bronn, William Troos-Ekong, Junior Sambia; Tonny Vilhena, Emil Bohinen, Lassana Coulibaly; Antonio Candreva, Boulaye Dia, Krzysztof Piatek.
Juventus (3-5-2): Wojciech Szczesny; Alex Sandro, Gleison Bremer, Danilo; Juan Cuadrado, Manuel Locatelli, Nicolo Fagioli, Adrien Rabiot, Filip Kostic; Angel Di Maria, Dusan Vlahovic.
How to Watch?
Salernitana vs Juventus, alongside all other Serie A fixtures, is available to watch online via Serie A live streams.
Salernitana vs Juventus Prediction
Salernitana’s massive defensive issues, which have seen them concede in their last nine league games, may pave the way for Juventus’ effort to get back on the rails.
But the visitors have not fared well of late, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see them drop points again.
Salernitana 1-1 Juventus
