Serie A Betting Tips: Best Bets for this week from Italian Football

It is the last Serie A week before Christmas and our Italian football expert is riding a hot streak. Four winners from five across his two pieces in the last gameweek and he's looking to keep that up.

Here in his weekly Serie A tipping column, he writes about his three Best Bets across the league...

Inter and Juventus continue their battle for the Scudetto with the Neroazzurri extending their lead to four points after last weekend. There’s no break for Serie A teams this winter, so following the Coppa Italia games here comes another exciting matchday, that will played across two days just before Christmas.

Which team will find the three points under the three?

• It’s now or never for Lazio
• Emotions guaranteed
• Will the ‘masters of draw’ strike again?

Empoli vs Lazio (Friday, 17:30)

Sunday’s defeat against Inter confirmed the torrid moment for Maurizio Sarri’s team.

Eleventh in the table and with nine points less compared to last season, Lazio are finding it extremely hard to score: one year ago, at the same stage of the campaign, they had netted 11 times more.

The new signings, Kamada, Isaksen, Castellanos and Rovella, have barely left their marks and so Lazio, who have been drawn against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, seriously risk to throw the season away.

The game at the Castellani is probably their last chance to chase qualification for next year’s Champions League, but the Biancocelesti, who kept 21 clean sheets last year in Serie A, have already lost seven away games this season in all competitions.

Empoli, who are third from bottom just one point behind Udinese, are the joint lowest scoring side, alongside Clermont, in Europe top five leagues.

Five of their 10 goals scored have come in front of their crowd, but their domestic record is extremely poor (only five points). A victory for Lazio (21/20) in a low scoring game (under 3.5 goals is at 2/7) is probably the most likely result. You can pair them up on the #PickYourPunt feature at 6/4.

Bologna vs Atalanta (Saturday, 14:00)

This is the most exciting game of the weekend with both clubs flying high. Atalanta have got used to be in the top positions in Serie A, whereas Bologna, currently in fourth, represent a breath a fresh air for Italian football.

Under the management of Thiago Motta, the Felsinei are all about games control: they’ve got the third best defence in the league, having kept seven clean sheets, and only six of their games have seen more than 2.5 goals scored.

Last year after 16 games they had scored the exact number of goals (20), but conceded 14 more.

Bologna have collected 19 points at home (same as the leaders Inter), winning the last five matches on the bounce.

The visitors could leapfrog Bologna if they win and are also in a good moment.

Attacking football is Atalanta’s trademark. They’ve won their last three games scoring 11 goals and their three strikers Luis Muriel, Ademola Lookman and Mario Pasalic, look really tuned in

Having to deal with the absences of the summer’s big signings, Gianluca Scamacca and Bilal Toure, Gianpiero Gasperini’s side has managed to find goals from other sources, like Scalvini, De Ketelaere and Miranchuk, and have the third best attack in Serie A.

However they’ve lost four away games and against top sides in Italy have only collected four points in six matches so far.

Both Teams to Score (odds are 8/11) looks like a fairly reasonable option.

Torino vs Udinese (Saturday, 14:00)

Five points adrift from the fourth spot but with the fourth worse Serie A attack (only 14 goals), Torino are a bit of a mystery.

After two bad months, the Granata lately have collected good results: they’re unbeaten in the last three games where they also kept clean sheets.

But their sterility in attack is worrying, considering they’ve added Duvan Zapata in the summer. Only five of their 16 games have seen more than 2.5 goals scored, and this one might be no exception.

The Friulani simply can’t win: they were 2-0 against Sassuolo with fifteen minutes to go but, after Pajero sending off, managed to give away two goals.

It was the 10th draw of the campaign for Gabriele Cioffi’s side, who have only kept four clean sheets this season and are 12 points below their tally from 2022/2023.

One of their biggest problems is that they struggle to convert chances: they’ve got the worse difference between goals and xG (-7.90) in Italy’s top flight. They seriously risk to get relegated to Serie B, unless they sign a prolific striker in January.

Everything suggests this would a low scoring game, the odds for under 2.5 goals are 8/13.

You can check out all of Daniele's Serie A Betting Tips here each week along with those of our other Italian Football writers...