Parma-Cagliari

By: Jeremy | September 25th, 2009

Two teams feeling confident head into round 6 looking to build on momentum from two great results midweek in round 5.

Parma has returned to Serie A after a year in Serie B and seems to have returned to the days when relegation candidate was nowhere in its vocabulary. With a road win at Lazio, a team expected to be well into the top half of the table, combined with a wins against Catania and Palermo and a draw with Udinese, Parma sits on 10 points level with strong teams like Genoa and Fiorentina. These are 10 points earned against some strong teams and their loss to Inter is out of the way so they should really feel good about themselves and where they are to date.

Cagliari, as predicted by me, stole three points on the road to Bari with a late Nene goal. After that great road win following a strong performance against Inter, combined with Nene getting his first of what will hopefully be many Serie A goals, while they sit on only 4 points and will likely be worrying about relegation, Cagliari has to feel they can get something this weekend, even on the road to Parma. They are better then where they sit in the standings right now so Parma will not have a walkover easy three points.

Parma, despite its strong start, is still a bottom half of the table team talent wise. They have added veteran Christian Panucci from Roma and have nice young French striker Biabany, but their talent overall is not as good as Cagliaris. The difference seems to be so far is that the new players have gelled and have played together with inspiration to get some great results while Cagliari is still looking for answers.

Cagliari is still looking to find itself but the win against Bari will go along way toward gaining confidence and momentum as some easier games are coming up. I am still not sure why Nene is not starting and his performance will continue to determine Cagliaris fortunes so get him on the field more often. With Conti ready to return from suspension, Cagliari will have even more players at its disposal. Some other good news is that Mario Brkljaca, the 24 yr old Croatian International, finally has his paperwork from Hadjuk Split taken care of and his transfer might be completed as soon as this weekend. He is good enough to where he might crack the starting eleven in the next few weeks. We continue to improve our midfield but the strikeforce is still woeful and goal scoring sporadic until Nene is a starter.

Allegri seems to be planning around the fact Cossu will leave for a bigger team, maybe even this winter, but for all the talent he is getting in the midfield, none of that matters without some goal scorers. Until then, if Nene is going to be a sub of the bench, we need to find a way to get Cossu in attack and add a player from the bench to midfield. Larrivey and Matri do not need to be in the lineup.

Cagliaris talent is clearly better then last year and better then Parmas. I really think Cagliari can win this match but you cannot ignore Parmas strong start and the confidence they are feeling after beating some very strong Serie A sides. At home they should be expected to win and need to beat teams like Cagliari if they expect to establish themselves well away from relegation.

I think its too early to take too much into account regarding the overall play of these teams despite Parmas strong start and Cagliaris so so beginning. This game could go either way so I think it ends in a draw

Prediction Parma 1-1 Cagliari

Prediction Record to date: 3-2