Next Saturday, 7th of March 2015, Sinisa Mihajlovic’s Sampdoria will measure forces with Cagliari, who is desperate for points, at Stadio Luigi Ferraris for round 26 of the Italian Serie A, on a match that both sides need to win for very different reasons.

Sampdoria have finally put an end to their Serie A winning fast after overcoming Atalanta at Bergamo last Sunday. The Genovese team sealed a narrow but deserved 2-1 win thanks to goals from Muriel and Okaka on the second-half of the match. Sampdoria’s supporters have now plenty of reasons to smile after a long period of less impressive performances and some painful defeats, as the 5-1 goal galore against Torino. The clash against Atalanta marked the return of Samuel Eto’o to the team’s starting line-up after he was relegated to the bench on the derby della Lanterna.

Mihajlovic managed to recover his team after several negative results and after dropping some places at the Serie A league table, but now they need to continue winning in order to maintain their point distances from their more direct contestants.

The upcoming clash against Cagliari will certainly not be an easy one, especially because of the visitors' current situation at the league table and their urgent need of points. For that particular match, the erratic Serbian manager will be glad to know that he will be able to rely once again on the contribution of Soriano, Obiang and Eder, who missed the team’s last fixture due to suspension.

As for Cagliari, they have been experiencing several complicated moments at Serie A so far this season. They are currently third from bottom with only Parma and Cesena behind them and a match at Luigi Ferraris is probably not the best opportunity for them to turn their recent bad fortune around. Last weekend, Cagliari sucumbed at home at the hands of Hellas Verona, thus conceding their thirteenth defeat in 25 matches this season.

For the predictably difficult clash against Sampdoria next Saturday, the former Chelsea forward and current Cagliari manager, Gianfranco Zola, is not yet certain if he will be able to rely on the services of Marco Sau, who remains sidelined due to injury.

Regardless of their recent inconsistency and less impressive performances, Sampdoria are firm favourites for next Saturday’s match.

Sampdoria

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - WDLDL

Cagliari

Stats: W-0 L-4 D-1

Recent Form - LLDLL

Possible Line-ups

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

Cagliari (4-3-2-1) - Brkic - Gonzalez - Rossettini - Diakite - Murru - Donsah - Conte - Dessena - Ekdal - M’Poku - Longo

Prediction

Sampdoria 3 Cagliari 1