Sampdoria vs Lazio

Out-of-sorts Sampdoria entertain high-flying Lazio at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris in a potentially high-stakes midweek Serie A showdown.

Sampdoria’s wasteful start to the 2022/23 Serie A season culminated with an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at Salernitana over the weekend, leaving Marco Giampaolo’s side goalless after the opening three league matches for the first time since 1977/78. After drawing a blank in their last two Serie A outings at Ferraris (D1, L1), ‘La Samp’ stare down the barrel of three consecutive home league games without scoring for the first time since 2013. Spreading back to the 2021/22 season, Giampaolo’s men are scoreless in four successive Serie A outings. Lazio’s midweek visit to Genoa won’t make things better for Sampdoria, as they’ve lost five of their last six top-flight H2Hs on home turf (W1), including a 3-1 defeat in this corresponding fixture in 2021/22.

In the meantime, Lazio netted on either side of halftime to take down Inter Milan 3-1 at the weekend and maintain their 100% unbeaten ratio across their opening three Serie A games (W2, D1). Maurizio Sarri’s men are one win away from amassing ten points from their first four fixtures of a new Serie A season for only the second time in 23 years. All looks good from Lazio’s point of view, as they’ve only lost two of their 21 previous top-flight encounters against Sampdoria (W16, D3), winning both seasonal H2Hs in 2021/22 via a two-goal margin. However, ‘I Biancocelesti’ have drawn their last two away league matches and could reach three on the trot in the competition for the first time since 2016.