Serie A Betting: Back an Inter-Fiorentina thriller and support Sassuolo again

Viola bring the party

Inter v Fiorentina
Tuesday, 20:00
Live on Eleven Sports 2 and Betfair Live Video

I was wrong about Inter's trip to Sampdoria on Saturday night, as a game that I thought would be full of goals had just one (as three were disallowed via VAR). How significant Marcelo Brozovic's winner might be going forward, though. Inter finally have a little bit of momentum, and they bring that into another tough test on Tuesday night, with Fiorentina the visitors to San Siro.

All of the recent historical statistics point to goals in this one. There has been an average of 4.7 goals per game in the last seven meetings between the two sides, and there are on-field trends this season which back up that numerical assumption.

Inter have largely looked to attack teams at home, and play more defensively away. This was an approach that worked well for them for long periods in the last campaign, and there's no reason why Luciano Spalletti will veer away from this.

They went at both Torino and Parma, failed to win either game, but created chances while looking shaky at the back. The Torino game had four goals, the Parma match just one, but both fitted a pattern, and I think that we'll see the same sort of game on Tuesday.

And Fiorentina bring plenty to the party too. They were disappointing in that jarring defeat at Napoli, but they've looked threatening. They were only involved in one high-scoring game this season, but with a limited sample size we have to look at approach as well as numbers. And I think that La Viola will score at San Siro against Inter, possibly more than once.

With Mauro Icardi yet to fire in Serie A this season, there's a question mark about Inter in front of goal, but he has a great personal record against Fiorentina (eight goals in his last four games against them), and it won't be long before he bursts into life.

The other statistic that I like is that Luciano Spalletti and Stefano Pioli have now gone head-to-head eight times and only once did the game feature fewer than three goals. And on four of those occasions there were four or more. Spalletti versus Pioli normally means goals, and I'm going to bank on them blending for more here.

Beautiful football in Bergamo

Atalanta v Torino
Wednesday, 20:00
Live on Betfair Live Video

I also believe that there'll be goals in Bergamo on Wednesday. Atalanta were involved in a thrilling game in Milan on Sunday, coming from behind twice to draw 2-2, and even though Papu Gomez is likely to miss this match, I liked the way that Emiliano Rigoni and Duvan Zapata changed the game at San Siro.

They'll surely both start here, and they can trouble a Torino team that was overpowered by Napoli on Sunday, but which has largely impressed in this campaign so far, without getting the results to show for the way that they've played.

Torino's most obvious route to goal is Andrea Belotti, and with the Granata scoring 60% of their goals so far this season from set pieces, they look likely to trouble an Atalanta side that has already conceded three times this season from those situations: no one has let in more. Don't be at all surprised to see a Belotti header from a well worked corner find the back of the net.

This game is rather like the Inter against Fiorentina one, in that we're too close to the start of the season to have worked out definitively how teams are going to play, and significant trends are yet to develop. Having watched both of these teams on more than one occasion this season, though, I think that they'll be involved in plenty of reasonably high-scoring games, and I like to support that eventuality in the appropriate games while prices remain generous.

Sassuolo underestimated

SPAL v Sassuolo
Thursday, 18:00
Live on Eleven Sports 1 and Betfair Live Video

One trend which I think we can draw from the beginning of the season, and which served us very well last weekend, is that Sassuolo are significantly better than they are being given credit for.

On Thursday, they travel to a SPAL team that has started well, but which has now lost two of the last three, and may just be starting to slide.

I can see why you might want to support a SPAL victory here. They've won both of their home games so far without conceding, but that was against a nervous looking Parma and then an odd version of Atalanta (Gasperini's team were dreadful that night) and so I don't think that there's anything here for Sassuolo to fear.

Andrea Petagna did well against his parent club Atalanta, but this isn't a striker who will score a significant amount of goals over the course of a season, and while there's much to admire about the way that Leonardo Semplici has organised SPAL, I simply feel that Sassuolo are a cut above.

They won here against SPAL last season, and they are much improved in this campaign. They have already won seven points from losing positions this season, which shows the extent to which they're prepared to battle, and they are exactly the kind of team that this column wants on its side. They're too big to win this one, and it makes a lot of sense to support them. 

RECOMMENDED BETS

Back Over 3.5 Goals in Inter v Fiorentina @ 3.20 

Back Over 3.5 Goals in Atalanta v Torino @ 3.30 

Back Sassuolo to beat SPAL @ 3.00