Italy Serie A

(201373) Udinese at (201374) Bologna

My timing on Bologna has been great (sarcasm) as I bet on them in back-to-back weeks against Frosinone and Monza which both ended in 0-0 draws then I didn’t touch them last week at Roma where they won 3-1.  I’m going to try them again here in a match they should win, and need to win to keep ahead of the chasing group trying to work into the Champions League qualification spots.

Though Bologna didn’t win those two matches I mentioned, xG showed a combined 5.23 – 0.98 tally between the two matches so it’s not like they weren’t creating chances, they just couldn’t convert.  They were able to do so last week though at Roma scoring three goals on 1.83 xG as those trends always seem to revert to the mean over time.

At home, they still have been incredible with just two losses this season, both coming against the sides from Milan, while they have kept 11 clean sheets in 17 matches and is the main reason I’m backing them again here.

Udinese has been the king of the draw this season, but for the most part, those results have come against teams in the bottom half of the table as they have struggled to get results against the top sides.  Just looking at their 14 matches this calendar year, they have seven losses and their xG chances created have not been good in those losses:

0.07 vs Inter
0.38 vs Torino
0.32 at Genoa
0.62 at Atalanta
0.81 vs Milan
0.61 vs Lazio

As a result, they were held scoreless in four of those matches.  Bologna ranks as the 4th best defense according to xG and I just don’t see them allowing many quality chances to Udinese.  So I expect another clean sheet here, let’s just hope Bologna find at least one goal this time to capture all three points.

TAKE BOLOGNA -0.75

Line Parameter: 4% to -1.0 -110, 3% to -1.0 -125