Hellas Verona and Napoli square off in Serie A on Tuesday evening with just one point separating the two teams in the table.
However, having closed the gap with a 2-1 win over Cagliari at the weekend, Verona will feel like they have momentum in their favour against the newly-crowned Coppa Italia champions.
Match preview
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While Gennaro Gattuso has only made a mixed impact at Stadio San Paolo in December, the feisty Italian has already delivered a piece of silverware for his new club.
Although Napoli were arguably the underdogs heading into meetings with Inter Milan and Juventus in the Coppa Italia, they rose to the occasion on both occasions to claim the trophy for the sixth time in their history.
Despite the success over Juve coming via a penalty shootout, Gattuso will take pride and confidence from keeping a clean sheet against the Serie A leaders for 90 minutes.
With a place in the Europa League having already been guaranteed for next season, Napoli can now attack the rest of the season as they bid to close the gap on fourth-placed Atalanta BC.
Even with 12 matches remaining, that appears an unlikely occurrence, but the scenario is set up for Gattuso to take more risks with his team selection and start planning for an improved league campaign in 2020-21.
As far as Verona are concerned, they will want to build on an excellent season which sees the club sit in seventh place and hold the fourth-best defensive record in the division.
The weekend's success over Cagliari was far from convincing, but Ivan Juric would have been delighted with the application of his side after Fabio Borini's first-half dismissal.
The result has kept I Gialloblu on the coattails of their next opponents and there will be a belief within the ranks that they can continue to ride a crest of a wave after last year's promotion from Serie B.
If there is one criticism of Verona, it is their lack of goals, with Samuel Di Carmine's double against Cagliari making him the club's top scorer with five strikes.
Nevertheless, this close-knit group will take every match as it comes, and a win over Napoli on Tuesday evening would not go unnoticed by the likes of Roma and Atalanta above them.
Hellas Verona Serie A form: DDWDLW
Napoli Serie A form: WWLWWW
Napoli form (all competitions): WWDWDD
Team News
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Given the level of their last performance, Gattuso is unlikely to make many alterations to his Napoli starting lineup.
Having only been introduced as a substitute against Juve, Arkadiusz Milik could be restored to the centre of the attack, resulting in Dries Mertens moving out wide.
Matteo Politano is also pushing for a start after impressing during the second half of the Coppa Italia final.
With Borini serving a ban, Juric may hand a recall to Mattia Zaccagni, providing that he retains his 3-4-2-1 formation.
Miguel Veloso is also in contention after coming through 45 minutes as a substitute at the weekend.
Hellas Verona possible starting lineup:
Silvestri; Rrahmani, Kumbulla, Empereur; Faraoni, Badu, Amrabat, Lazovic; Verre, Zaccagni; Di Carmine
Napoli possible starting lineup:
Meret; Lorenzo, Maksimovic, Koulibaly, Rui; Ruiz, Demme, Zielinski; Mertens, Milik, Insigne
We say: Hellas Verona 1-1 Napoli
With both clubs wary of suffering a potentially-pivotal defeat, this has got a tight match written all over it. For large parts, there may be something of an impasse with regards to attacking intent, and that may lead to a low-scoring draw being played out.
Darren Plant
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Napoli win with a probability of 53.05%. A win for Hellas Verona had a probability of 23.64% and a draw had a probability of 23.3%.
The most likely scoreline for a Napoli win was 0-1 with a probability of 9.88%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (9.77%) and 0-2 (8.8%). The likeliest Hellas Verona win was 1-0 (6.16%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.97%). The actual scoreline of 0-2 was predicted with an 8.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Napoli would win this match.
