Napoli vs Spezia

Napoli will be looking to post back-to-back Serie A wins for the first time since October when they take on bottom-half Spezia at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Napoli bounced back from a disappointing 1-0 home defeat to newly-promoted Empoli with another narrow success at AC Milan at the weekend to stay within touching distance of Serie A pacesetters Inter Milan. However, ‘I Partenopei’ have lost back-to-back top-flight home fixtures and face the risk of making it three home defeats in a row in the competition for the first time since January 2020. Despite their status as pre-match favorites, Napoli’s win here is anything but a foregone conclusion, as they lost their only previous Serie A H2H at home despite taking the lead (1-2). Indeed, the signs are ominous for Luciano Spalletti’s side here, as they’ve failed to win any of their last eight league matches played on Wednesday, European time (D4, L4).

In the meantime, Spezia have gone six consecutive Serie A games without a win (D2, L4) since defeating Torino 1-0 in early November, frustratingly conceding 2+ goals four times in the process. It goes from bad to worse away from home, where ‘I Lagunari’ have lost their last six Serie A fixtures in a row by an aggregate score of 18-3, drawing a blank on four of those occasions. Worryingly, Thiago Motta’s men have shipped a league-high 27 Serie A goals on the road this season, conceding an average of 3.00 goals per away league game! Topically, they’ve let in a staggering 14 first-half goals on hostile turf this Serie A campaign, collapsing within 15 minutes of play in 44.44% of their league travels so far (4/9).