Fifth-placed Juventus have won five of their last six games while third-placed Napoli has lost three of their last four league games.
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Juventus will host Napoli in the Serie A fixture in Turin on Thursday. Despite a contrasting start to the season both side’s return from the winter break separated by just five points in the Serie A standings. Juventus have won five of their last six games while Napoli has lost three of their last four league games. After a tumultuous start to the season, Juventus made the most of their friendly fixture list before the mid-season interval by ending the year on an unbeaten run of six successive matches, conceding just two goals in the process.
Massimiliano Allegri’s side defeated Genoa, Bologna and Cagliari in December to finish the year on a high. In the last match against Cagliari, Moise Kean and Federico Bernardeschi netted for the Bianconeri to take all three points. Allegri has managed to steer his side back on track in the league, as they managed to reduce the gap with the fourth placed Atalanta to just four points.
However the New Year isn’t going to be an easy ride for Juventus as they are set to meet Roma, Atalanta, Milan in the course of the next month. Allegri’s side are 12 points behind leaders Inter Milan and now they have to put together a run of convincing results against some of the top teams in the league to have any chance of challenging for the Scudetto title.
Juventus’ problem has been scoring goals. They are the joint-lowest scoring team in the top half of the table, even 13th-placed Sassuolo has scored more goals than the 36-time Serie A champions.
On the other hand, Napoli had a very impressive start to the season, winning nine of their opening 10 league games. But, since their first loss in late November to Inter Milan, very little has gone right for Luciano Spalletti’s side. They have been decimated by injuries to several key players. Napoli had lost three of their last four league games, pushing them down to third spot, seven points adrift of the leaders
Meanwhile to add to their problems their talisman Lorenzo Insigne has recently signaled his departure, which will come in the summer. And also, the COVID-19 outbreak has affected several squad members as well as Spalletti himself. Therefore, with their head coach absent along with as many as eight players because of illness and African Nations Cup, Napoli has a tough task in hand when they travel to the Juventus Stadium.
