Fiorentina is hosting Lazio at Stadio Artemio Franchi in round 24 of the Italian Serie A. Fiorentina was good so far this season, but they lose their best striker to Juventus last week, and now their season will be another disappointment. Lazio is great in the attacking end, but their defense is just garbage, but they are still close to the Champions League.
As I’ve mentioned, Fiorentina has lost Vlahovic last week to Juventus in a 70 million Euros transfer, and that will have a huge impact on Fiorentina’s season from now on. Vlahovic has scored 17 goals so far this season, and there is no reason to think he won’t do the same in Juventus. with 36 points, Fiorentina is now in 8th place, they have scored 41 goals while conceding 30 goals. Apart from Vlahovic, Fiorentina doesn’t have any other source of goals because Biraghi is their next goalscorer with only 4 goals. Odriazola is suspended because of the red card. Fiorentina did sign a striker from Basel last week, but he will not be on Vlahovic’s level, at least not right away. It will be a hard second half of the season for Fiorentina.
As I’ve mentioned, Lazio has a great offense, one of the best in the league, but their defense is really, really bad with 39 conceded goals in 23 games. With 36 points, Lazio is now in 7th place, but they are still close to the Europa League, and even the Champions League. Before this short international break, Lazio was undefeated in their last 3 games, but they couldn’t beat that decimated Atalanta team in their last Serie A game. Lazio has only 2 injured players, and those are Acerbi and Akpa. Immobile has also been in excellent form so far this season with 17 scored goals, while Milinkovic-Savic has added 7 goals and 7 assists. I know Lazio can score goals against the best teams out there, I know they can outscore anyone with their offense this season, but unless they get their defense going, I’m afraid they won’t be able to reach the Europa League.
Now that they lost Vlahovic, Fiorentina will have a tough time creating chances and scoring goals, unless they find them coming from someone else, which is unlikely. Lazio is the better team here despite playing so bad defensively, and for that reason, I will side with Lazio here.