Lazio striker Ciro Immobile in Serie A action

Serie A season preview: Betting trends, stats and top tips to watch out for as Italian football returns

By Sporting Life

21:12 · WED June 17, 2020

As we look forward to Serie A getting back into action, Graham Ruthven looks at five trends worth your attention.

Calcio is back. Well, nearly. The 2019/20 Serie A season is set to resume on June 20 after a three-month hiatus due to the global coronavirus pandemic and there is a lot of unfinished business to be settled.

There’s a title race to be decided, a top four scrap to be called and a fight to survive to be resolved.

Here are five things to watch out for down the stretch of the Serie A season, and how you can make these ttrends work for you in the betting markets.

Goals, goals, goals in Bergamo

Atalanta have backed up their astonishing success of the 2018/19 season by once again making their place in Serie A’s top four stick, with Gian Piero Gasperini’s side also through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. They have done this by quite simply being the most exhilarating attacking outfit in Italy’s top flight.

Indeed, if goals are what you’re looking for, Bergamo has been the place to be this season. They are Serie A’s top scorers, finding the net 70 times in just 25 games, and in Josip Ilicic, Luis Muriel and Duvan Zapata they boast three players with 39 goals between them alone.

Their hot streak doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon with Sassuolo to play first upon their return (see below) before they take on Lazio, who are the league's second-top scorers.

Betting: There's an average of 4.2 goals Atalanta's Serie A matches and they have the best over 2.5 goals per game ratio in Europe (21 out of 25 games). Second in Serie A are Sassuolo with 19 games going over 2.5 goals. Guess who Atalanta play first game back?

Best bet: Atalanta to beat Sassuolo & over 2.5 goals at 8/11

Red cards galore for Genoa

No Serie A team has seen more red cards flashed in their direction than Genoa this season. Indeed, they have had players sent off no fewer than eight times over the 2019/20 campaign, with three red cards in their last five matches alone before the coronavirus pandemic forced Italian football into lockdown.

Federico Marchetti’s record of two red cards in two matches played this season takes some beating, but even looking behind the third-choice goalkeeper, Genoa have become something of a liability at the back. They must keep their discipline if they are to survive the threat of relegation and claw themselves away from danger.

Betting: Their first game against a relatively well-behaved Parma might not have cards galore, although Genoa could cause a fight in a phonebox at times, but their second game against Brescia is worth adding to the notebook - no team in Serie A has had more yellow cards given to the opposition then their 83.

When Lazio score, Ciro Immobile does

Lazio’s emergence as genuine Scudetto challengers has been one of the stories of the season in Italy and much of their success is down to the goalscoring exploits of Ciro Immobile, who has netted 27 times over the course of the campaign.

Written off after his failure to make the grade at Borussia Dortmund, the 30-year-old is enjoying quite the career renaissance.

It would be lazy to claim Lazio are overly dependent on Immobile - see the contributions of Luis Alberto, Sergey Milinkovic-Savic and Joaquin Correa among others - but the striker has scored 45% of their total league goals this season, the highest share of any individual player of any Serie A side.

Betting: Quite simple this one, as when Lazio score, it tends to be Immobile who does it. He’s a good option in any first or anytime scorer markets.

Inter more at home away from home

Antonio Conte has turned Inter into a more balanced side since arriving at the San Siro last summer, but the Nerazzurri have allowed themselves to drop off the pace since the turn of the year, with nine points between them in third place and top spot.

A big part of the problem has been Inter’s form in front of their own fans - they won't have that problem for the rest of the season.

Inter have dropped points in three of their last five matches at the San Siro. In fact, Conte’s side have been more at home away from home. Before the back-to-back defeats to Juventus and Lazio before the shutdown, the Nerazzurri had gone 11 games unbeaten on the road, winning nine. They are set up to thrive away from home.

Betting: Inter start with back-to-back home games against Sampdoria and Sassuolo where they're massive favourites. Their first away game is at Parma when there will be a touch more value in them to continue their away form.

Lecce’s salvation could be from the spot

With 12 games left of the 2019/20 season left to play, Lecce find themselves in something of a hole, scrapping for their Serie A survival in the bottom three. But for a struggling side, Lecce have scored an unusually high proportion of their goals from the penalty spot (seven from 34). In fact, only two teams in the whole league (Lazio and Juventus) have scored more goals from penalties than Lecce this season.

Scoring goals hasn’t been the primary issue for Fabio Liverani’s side. Keeping them out, on the other hand, has been the reason for their troubles down at the wrong end of the table. Nonetheless, a Lecce penalty goal is a solid bet when other struggling sides aren’t so solid when it comes to finding the back of the net.

Betting: Watch out for the referee appointments for Lecce's first game against AC Milan and pay special attention if Gianluca Rocchi is appointed as he's averaged a penalty per game over his 12 Serie A matches in charge this season. He's also awarded four penalties in three Lecce games this term - three of them to Lecce.

Best Bet: A penalty scored in Lecce v AC Milan at 7/4

Odds correct as of 1902 BST on 12/06/20

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