Seeking to remain in the hunt to qualify for European competition, Fiorentina will welcome Empoli to the Stadio Artemio Franchi for their Serie A encounter on Sunday afternoon.
Both La Viola and Gli Azzurri played out 1-1 draws in their most recent games before the international break, with the former claiming a point against Inter Milan and the latter sharing the spoils with Hellas Verona.
Match preview
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Fiorentina's hopes of qualifying for Europe for the first time in five years are still in sight and a point claimed against title challengers Inter Milan last time out could prove to be a valuable one in weeks to come.
La Viola have accumulated 11 points from their last six matches and they are now sitting eighth in the Serie A standings, four points behind sixth-placed Roma in the Europa Conference League position with a game in hand.
Vincenzo Italiano's side have performed well on home soil over the last few months, winning eight and drawing two of their last 11 games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, scoring at least three goals on six of these occasions, albeit most of these goals during this run were scored by Dusan Vlahovic who moved to Juventus in January.
Fiorentina have won five of their last eight Serie A home games against Empoli, but they will be seeking revenge on Sunday against Gli Azzurri, who won 2-1 in the reverse fixture in November last year, a game which La Viola were winning before two late strikes in the 87th and 89th minutes from Andrea Pinamonti and Filippo Bandinelli respectively dramatically turned the game on its head.
With challenging fixtures against league leaders Napoli, AC Milan, Roma and Juventus all still to come this season, Fiorentina can ill-afford to slip up again against Empoli this weekend if they wish to break into the top six.
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Empoli's winless league run was extended to 13 matches when they played out a 1-1 draw at home against Verona on March 20.
Federico Di Francesco's first-half strike was cancelled out in the 76th minute by Matteo Cancellieri, forcing the hosts to settle for their ninth draw of the campaign.
After securing promotion to the top flight as Serie B champions last season, Empoli will have been delighted to be sitting ninth in Serie A and just four points off the European places in mid-December.
However, since then their fortunes have turned for the worse and a winless run in the first three months of 2022 has seen them drop down to 13th in the table, 18 points behind the top six.
A mid-table finish is now seemingly on the cards for Aurelio Andreazzoli's men, as they are 11 points clear of the relegation zone with nine games remaining, but the Empoli boss will still be keen for his side to return to winning ways quickly, and a few more victories would certainly ease the nerves as they head into the final stretch.
Empoli have only lost two of their last nine league games away from home – albeit failing to score in each of their last four during this run – and their victory against Fiorentina earlier this season should also provide them with confidence ahead of Sunday's fixture.
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Team News
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Fiorentina's only injury concern is with midfielder Giacomo Bonaventura, who is set to remain sidelined for the next few weeks with a bruised knee.
Italiano may decide to make a few alterations to his starting lineup, with right-back Alvaro Odriozola and centre-back Lucas Martinez Quarta both pushing to start after beginning on the bench against Inter last time out.
Riccardo Sottil, Jose Callejon, Jonathan Ikone and Arthur Cabral also began as substitutes in the last game, and they will all be hoping to start on Sunday, but the former two are the most likely to get the nod in attack along with Krzysztof Piatek, which would see Nico Gonzalez and Riccardo Saponara drop out of the first XI.
As for Empoli, Fabiano Parisi picked up his fifth yellow card of the season last time out and will now serve a one-match suspension, with Liberato Cacace the most likely candidate to replace him at left-back.
Simone Romagnoli could be joined by either Sebastiano Luperto or Mattia Viti at centre-back, while Scottish midfielder Liam Henderson will be hoping to force his way back into the first XI ahead of either Kristjan Asllani or Nedim Bajrami.
Top scorer Pinamonti, who has nine league goals to his name this term, is expected to start again as the central striker ahead of Patrick Cutrone.
Fiorentina possible starting lineup:
Terracciano; Odriozola, Milenkovic, Martinez Quarta, Biraghi; Castrovilli, Torreira, Duncan; Callejon, Piatek, Sottil
Empoli possible starting lineup:
Vicario; Stojanovic, Romagnoli, Luperto, Cacace; Zurkowski, Asllani, Bandinelli; Bajrami, Francesco; Pinamonti
We say: Fiorentina 1-0 Empoli
Although Empoli have been struggling to secure all three points of late, they have managed to make life difficult for their opponents and have either claimed hard-fought draws or suffered defeat only by the odd goal.
Another low-scoring affair could be on the cards this weekend, but we can see Fiorentina edging out Gli Azzurri to claim a slender victory.
Oliver Thomas
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Fiorentina win with a probability of 58.96%. A draw had a probability of 21.7% and a win for Empoli had a probability of 19.35%.
The most likely scoreline for a Fiorentina win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.97%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.95%) and 2-0 (9.73%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.2%), while for a Empoli win it was 0-1 (5.23%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with a 10% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted a 1-0 win for Fiorentina in this match.
