Como vs Bologna Prediction: Stalemate beckons between winless pair

Como go in search of their first Serie A win in more than 20 years at the Giuseppe Sinigaglia on Saturday against a Bologna side with the distraction of Champions League football in their calendar (kick-off 14:00 BST, 15:00 local).

Cesc Fabregas’ troops have collected just one point from three away games thus far, while Bologna are also searching for a first win of the season. My Como vs Bologna predictions will be influenced by the visitors’ European date with Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday.

Team News

Como gaffer Cesc Fabregas will be without high-profile summer addition Raphael Varane, who picked up a knee problem early in his club debut in the Coppa Italia against Sampdoria and has failed to appear in a single Serie A game so far.

Daniele Baselli is also likely to remain unavailable having himself played just 22 minutes of league football this season before exiting the 3-0 loss at Juventus on opening day.

Andrea Belotti could play up front, although he has yet to play more than an hour in any of his three games to date as Fabregas looks for the right approach in the final third.

Vincenzo Italiano is likely to be without Dan Ndoye due to injury as Bologna go looking for a morale-boosting win ahead of their first European competition fixture in 60 years in midweek.

Italiano is also missing Lewis Ferguson, Oussama El Azzouzi and Nicolo Cambiaghi with various knee ailments and Emil Holm due to an ankle complaint.

Como vs Bologna Odds

This is a tight call for the bookies, with Betfred offering 15/8 about a Como win and 6/4 for the visiting Rossoblu to collect a first victory. That’s the equivalent, in implied probability, of the home side having a 34.8% chance of success and 40% for the away outfit.

The draw, meanwhile, is priced at 23/10.

Draw @ 23/10

And the draw is where I’m landing on this one. So often when you have two teams desperate for a win at the bottom end of Serie A early in a campaign, there’s a stasis which takes over.

Como could do with a win, having – in the words of Fabregas – “absolutely dominated” in both halves of their 1-0 loss at Udinese last time out. But more than that, they need not to lose, and that could turn out to be the dominant urge when top-tier football returns to the banks of Lake Como on Saturday.

That requirement to play their first three league matches away from home in order to bring their stadium up to scratch might well be one of the reasons for their lack of a victory so far, but we’ll only know for sure if they start to pick up enough wins at home to justify that assertion.

They are fortunate that they come up against a Bologna side which has also struggled so far in 2024-25 and who have bigger things on their plate this week, but the visitors’ excellent campaign last season marks them out as a club who should start firing soon.

Ultimately, I don’t believe either team will be desperate enough to go all-out for the kill, and as a result they may well end up just cancelling each other out.

Football Odds

60-75 Bookings Points @ 13/5

In any scrappy encounter, bookings become likely to stack up, and as I can see this match going that way I’m expecting a fair number of cards.

With 10 points for each yellow and 25 for reds, the danger in a meeting of two sides trying to find their feet is that they might end up overshooting the 75 points in this market.

But I like the value on offer for what is basically six or seven yellows supposing there are no sendings-off, and the implied probability of 27.8% doesn’t put me off one jot.

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