After four consecutive wins in all competitions, Fiorentina welcome Salernitana to Stadio Artemio Franchi on Wednesday night as Serie A fast approaches the World Cup break.
Only a point separates the two sides going into this midweek clash, with the visitors enjoying a productive start to the campaign after narrowly avoiding relegation to Serie B last year.
Match preview
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With Europa Conference League knockout football secured in the new year, Fiorentina returned to Serie A action on Sunday and eased past relegation-threatened Sampdoria with a 2-0 victory at Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris.
Goals from Giacomo Bonaventura and Nikola Milenkovic either side of the half-time break saw Vincenzo Italiano's men pick up maximum points on their travels, a result which leaves them 11th in the league standings heading into Wednesday's match.
Even though they have tasted back-to-back victories in Serie A most recently, Fiorentina's form this season has been nowhere near the standard required to keep pace with the host of clubs chasing European football next year, with sixth-placed Roma currently nine points ahead of the Firenze-based club.
Despite their mid-table positioning, the Gigliati have been able to compete with some of the best sides in Italy so far this season and are one of only two teams to deny league-leaders Napoli three points after holding them to a goalless draw at home in August.
That stalemate with Luciano Spalletti's men does not give away Fiorentina's issues at the back during home fixtures to date, with Italiano's side conceding 11 goals in just six matches in front of their own supporters, a record only better than Hellas Verona's on home turf.
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After securing just a single win from their opening eight Serie A matches this season, many Salernitana fans were fearing the worst for a club who had only survived relegation last season by one point on their return to Italy's top flight.
However, three wins in the last five have seen Davide Nicola's charges rise up the league standings into ninth place, a remarkable 11 points from the relegation positions that many pundits expected them to occupy at this stage of the season.
That gap to the bottom three could have been even greater if it was not for Daniel Ciofani's late equaliser against Salernitana for recently-promoted Cremonese on Saturday, with the Salerno side having to settle for a share of the spoils in a game they would have targeted for all three points.
Nicola would love a repeat of his team's most recent away venture, in which they were at their effective and clinical best to beat third-placed Lazio 3-1 at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, their only win against a club outside the bottom four in Serie A this season.
Salernitana striker and Poland international Krzysztof Piatek will face off against one of his old sides on Wednesday night, with the 27-year old leading his current club's goalscoring charts with three strikes in nine Serie A appearances at the start of this campaign.
Team News
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Fiorentina will be without the services of Argentinian striker Nicolas Gonzalez as he continues his recovery from a hamstring tear that saw him substituted very early on in his side's defeat to Inter Milan last month.
Winger Riccardo Sottil is still a doubt with a back issue, and joins Gaetano Castrovilli in the Fiorentina medical room with both players unlikely to feature before the World Cup break.
Salernitana's Matteo Lovato was stretchered off with a head injury during the second half of the draw with Cremonese and is not in contention for Wednesday's trip to Firenze, with Lorenzo Pirola likely to take his place in the starting XI.
Lovato's unavailability adds to a list of defensive casualties for head coach Nicola, with Slovakian central defender Norbert Gyomber out with a hamstring injury sustained in the early stages of their win at Lazio.
Fiorentina possible starting lineup:
Terracciano; Dodo, Milenkovic, Quarta, Biraghi; Bonaventura, Mandragora, Duncan; Ikone, Jovic, Kouame
Salernitana possible starting lineup:
Sepe; Bronn, Pirola, Fazio; Mazzocchi, Candreva, Radovanovic, Coulibaly, Bradaric; Dia, Piatek
We say: Fiorentina 2-1 Salernitana
Fiorentina are enjoying a good run of form in all competitions as the World Cup break draws closer, but they still have a lot of work to do in order to catch up with those clubs challenging for European places in Serie A.
Salernitana have improved after a woeful start to the campaign and now face two away assignments before the league pauses until January, but a trip to face Italiano's men may be where the good results of late begin to dry up.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Top tip
Carter White
