Venezia vs Juventus

Bottom-half Venezia will entertain top-four challengers Juventus at the Stadio Pierluigi Penzo in their first Serie A encounter since January 2002.

Venezia have suffered a dip in form ahead of this round, going from back-to-back Serie A victories to three league defeats in a row, including an action-packed 4-3 loss to Hellas Verona last time out – they lost that fixture despite leading 3-0 at HT! Since that reverse followed up a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Atalanta, Venezia stare at the prospect of conceding 4+ goals in three consecutive top-flight games for only the third time in the club’s history. Worryingly, though, the hosts’ defensive woes have seen them concede 2+ goals in each of their last four Serie A outings, equaling their longest such streak in the competition set in 1967. At the other end of the pitch, ‘I Lagunari’ have netted a league-low seven second-half goals in Serie A this season.

In the meantime, Juventus have picked themselves up from back-to-back competitive losses in late November, putting three consecutive triumphs across all competitions since, including a 1-0 win over Malmo in midweek Champions League action. In Serie A alone, ‘I Bianconeri’ have won four of their last five matches (L1) en route to climbing to fifth in the standings. But with fourth-placed Atalanta currently seven points away from Juventus, there’s no margin for error here as the record-time Italian champions look to win three consecutive Serie A away games without conceding for the first time since December 2018. Adding to this sentiment, Massimiliano Allegri’s men have kept a clean sheet in four of their last five Serie A games, as many shutouts as they had in their previous 29 in the competition.