Juventus vs Genoa 31/10/19

31 October 2019

Rocked by a 1-1 away draw with Lecce at the weekend, Juventus will be looking to return to winning ways in the Serie A (SA) when they take on Genoa at the Allianz Stadium this midweek.

Although they are sitting top of the table, the hosts can’t afford to make a mistake as they have just a point lead over second-placed Inter Milan. The only side that is yet to suffer a league failure this term (W7, D2), the perennial champions have won all four of their opening SA home matches, three of which have come by a single-goal margin. Atypically for Juventus, they’ve failed to keep a clean sheet in three SA home outings so far, which could change now, considering they’ve prevented Genoa from scoring in six of their last seven competitive H2Hs here (W6, D1). Furthermore, Maurizio Sarri’s men have netted at least two goals in all six of their home games in all competitions this season, scoring in 11 of 12 halves of competitive action played so far.

Meanwhile, led by the new manager, Thiago Motta, the visitors have brought their three-game SA winless streak to a halt last time out (D1, L2) with a 3-1 home triumph over the newly-promoted Brescia. However, it will be a daunting task for ‘Il Grifone’ to replicate such success here, as they’ve lost three consecutive SA away games ahead of this trip, remaining at only one away point this term. Frustratingly for the traveling side, they’ve conceded three or more goals across their four league trips so far, shipping a total of 15 away goals – SA’s worst defensive record. The one consolation for ‘I Rossoblu’ is that they’ve found the back of the net on three of those occasions, with three of four open-play goals they’ve scored on the road coming in the second half.