Next Sunday, 15th of February 2015, a Sampdoria hurting in their pride will travel to Verona to measure forces with a Chievo team desperately in need of points at Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi for round 23 of the Italian Serie A. The team of Sinisa Mihajlovic is not going through the most positive of moments and they will certainly look return to wins against a considerably more inconsistent team such Chievo.

After a heavy and somewhat humiliating defeat against Torino two weeks ago, Sampdoria failed to win again when they hosted Sassuolo at Luigi Ferraris on Sunday. The Genovese team tried a pragmatic approach against Sassuolo’s more attacking driven style but it didn’t certainly work as Mihajlovic had hoped for. The team experienced plenty of difficulties to counter the visitor’s well mounted strategy and in the end they have to be happy with the point they did manage to snatch, especially if we have in mind the huge amount of goal chances Sassuolo created.

Mihajlovic has plenty of work to do in order to recover his team’s morale, since Sampdoria are currently on a three league match row without a single win.

The upcoming match against Chievo presents an excellent opportunity to return to wins but Sampdoria needs to improve their overall performances if they want to turn their visit to Verona into something positive, which could end up becoming a tricky clash.

For that particular match, Sampdoria’s Serbian manager will not be able to rely on the services of Okaka, who is currently suspended, and he is still not certain if Munoz and Cacciatore will recover in time from their respective injuries.

As for Chievo, the Verona-based team has been having plenty of difficulties to make a stand at Serie A so far this season. They are currently fourth from bottom, just one place above the relegation zone and they cannot allow any more slipups if they don’t want to fall into the catacombs of the relegation zone.

Last Wednesday, nevertheless, Chievo granted an important away win at the expenses of a highly disappointing Parma, something that allowed them to change places with Cagliari on the bottom places of the table.

For the upcoming complicated clash against Sampdoria, Chievo’s head coach, Rolando Maran, will probably have all his players at disposal, since there aren’t currently any names at the team’s injury list.

Sampdoria are firm favourites to win the match, although they need to improve a lot (judging from what they have been presenting over the recent fixtures) if they want to grab the three points during their visit to Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi.

Chievo

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

Recent Form - WLLLD

Sampdoria

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - DLDLW

Possible Line-ups

Chievo (4-4-2) - Bizarri - Dainelli - Zukanovic- Gamberini - Frey - Radovanovic - Izco - Hetemaj - Schelotto - Pellissier - Paloschi

Sampdoria (4-3-1-2) - Viviano - De Silvestri - Coda - Romagnoli - Regini - Obiang - Palombo - Duncan - Soriano - Eder - Eto’o

Prediction

Chievo 1 Sampdoria 2