Fiorentina will be looking to end a winless run of five matches when they host Hellas Verona in Serie A on Sunday.
The visitors, meanwhile, head into the weekend's meeting one point behind their forthcoming opponents having failed to make a positive start to the season themselves.
Match preview
After Rolando Mandragora's 95th-minute winner snatched all three points against newly promoted Cremonese on the first day of the season, Fiorentina looked set to have a positive campaign ahead of them.
However, perhaps being pushed so hard by a side playing with 10 men for more than half of the match instead indicated warning signs ahead, with The Violets failing to win any of their five league matches since.
They were beaten 2-1 away to Bologna last weekend, with Musa Barrow and Marko Arnautovic turning the match in the hosts' favour after Lucas Martinez had broken the deadlock nine minutes after half-time. Vincenzo Italiano's side's frustrations were encapsulated by Igor Julio's injury-time dismissal for a second bookable offence.
Fiorentina's week went from bad to worse when they were beaten 3-0 away to Istanbul Basaksehir in the Europa Conference League on Thursday, leaving them bottom of Group A with only one point from two matches.
Italiano, who impressed in his first season in charge of the club by guiding them to seventh place, must guide his side to a victory on Sunday, otherwise he will come under immense pressure during the forthcoming international break.
Verona, meanwhile, may be regretting appointing former Udinese boss Gabriele Cioffi during the summer after Igor Tudor was snapped up by Marseille.
The 47-year-old has won just one of his first six league games in charge - a 2-1 win at home to struggling Sampdoria - which does not represent a positive return given that the Yellow and Blues have finished in the top half of Serie A in each of the past three seasons.
They were comprehensively outplayed in a 2-0 defeat away to Lazio last weekend, with the Rome-based side enjoying 15 shots and 60% possession across the 90 minutes. Their goalkeeper, Ivan Provedel, was tested on just one occasion.
Cioffi is under pressure to implement a more effective style of play and run of results in the coming weeks, otherwise his second permanent managerial role - after a spell with Crawley Town in England - may come to a premature end.
- W
- D
- D
- L
- D
- L
- D
- L
- D
- D
- L
- L
- L
- D
- L
- D
- W
- L
Team News
Fiorentina will be without Igor for one match after his red card against Bologna, with Italiano seriously lacking central defenders given that Martinez and Nikola Milenkovic are both ruled out through injury.
Sofyan Amrabat dropped into central defence in Turkey on Thursday and may do so the same here, with Luca Ranieri potentially partnering him having sporadically played in that position during his career.
Dodo, Gaetano Castrovilli, Alfred Duncan, Szymon Zurkowski, Nicolas Gonzalez and Riccardo Sottil are all sidelined in something of an injury crisis for Italiano, who may be relieved that there is an international break after this match.
Verona, meanwhile, are only missing Federico Ceccherini and Miguel Veloso, so there are far fewer excuses for Cioffi not to improve recent results.
Both players were injured during the defeat to Lazio last time out, and are likely to be replaced by Koray Gunter and Adrien Tameze.
Fiorentina possible starting lineup:
P. Terracciano; Venuti, Amrabat, Ranieri, Biraghi; Bonaventura, Mandragora, Barak; Kouame, Jovic, Ikone
Hellas Verona possible starting lineup:
Montipo; Gunter, Hien, Coppola; F. Terracciano, Ilic, Tameze, Doig; Lazovic; Henry, Lasagna
We say: Fiorentina 2-2 Hellas Verona
With Fiorentina missing so many key defenders, we can envisage plenty of goals in Florence on Sunday.
The visitors have been in poor form of late but they may relish facing an out of sorts back line, so we can see a share of the spoils.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Top tip
body check tags ::
Previews by email
