Overview
When Fabio Grosso was sacked after only 4 matches, another difficult season seemed to be waiting for Fiorentina. However, the return of his predecessor quickly helped this team regain stability.
Vanoli once helped Fiorentina successfully stay in the league last season as interim coach. Returning to the coaching chair, he started his second term with a dramatic 4-2 victory over Venezia, in which Franco Mastantuono, a player loaned to Real Madrid, scored a hat-trick.
After ending a series of empty defeats in Serie A, Vanoli continued to lead Fiorentina to win the Coppa Italia against the same regional opponent Pisa. Three new players of this team in the summer transfer window also scored in turn.
With a familiar coaching staff and confidence gradually returning, Fiorentina has a chance to win two consecutive victories in Serie A before entering the international break.
However, Fiorentina has lost both home matches in Serie A this season, respectively against newly promoted Frosinone and Torino. The head-to-head record with Napoli also does not favor the home team at Franchi.
Fiorentina has only won one of their last 17 encounters with Napoli in Serie A, with the only victory taking place in April 2018.
Napoli is also dominating in recent encounters. The Southern Italian team has won all four recent encounters with Fiorentina in all competitions and scored at least 2 goals in each match.
Massimiliano Allegri also has a good head-to-head record against Fiorentina. In the last 12 encounters with this team in the national championship when he was still leading AC Milan and Juventus, he only suffered one defeat, besides nine wins.
Napoli desperately needs another victory to reduce pressure. Since his appointment, Allegri has not been able to help this team maintain stable form and still faces doubts.
The dense schedule makes Napoli's task even more difficult. They have just suffered two consecutive defeats against Italian and English champions, respectively against Inter Milan in Serie A and Arsenal in the Champions League.
In the most recent match, Napoli defeated Bologna thanks to Stanislav Lobotka's goal. This result helped Allegri have his first victory at home at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium after a long time.
The victory over Bologna partly reduces pressure at Naples. However, pressure will definitely return if Napoli cannot score points in the away match against Fiorentina.
Personnel situation
Vanoli made some changes in the squad in the derby against Pisa and is likely to continue personnel adjustments when Fiorentina returns to Serie A.
Mateo Pellegrino is expected to continue to play highest in attack, despite competition from Beto. This striker is in good form when scoring in all 3 recent matches.
On the opposite side, Napoli suffered personnel losses when goalkeeper Alex Meret and winger Alisson Santos just joined the injury list, along with Giovane, Scott McTominay, Alessandro Buongiorno and Luca Marianucci.
Expected lineup:
De Gea, Mario, Dragusin, Ranieri, Viery, Ndour, Fagioli, Mastantuono, Atta, Njie, Pellegrino.
Milinkovic-Savic, Di Lorenzo, Rrahmani, Marin, Spinazzola, Gilmour, Lobotka, Politano, De Bruyne, Vergara, Hojlund.
The match between Fiorentina and Napoli takes place at 5:30 PM on September 20 (Vietnam time).
