Brescia vs Bologna Predictions

Sunday is a huge occasion in Brescia, who finally return home after playing their opening two clashes on the road. They are bringing top-flight football back after a long wait. Brescia will host a home Serie A game for the first time since 22nd May 2011, 3038 days ago. Can they produce with the crowd behind them in a meeting with Bologna this weekend?

The hosts may have been put out for the opening couple of weekends, but they still have three points to show from their opening games of the season. A 1-0 victory in Cagliari was followed up by a narrow 1-0 loss at AC Milan. It’s a solid return for a newly promoted side, especially as they can look forward to a great opportunity for a home win this weekend.

Bologna have made a fine start with four points from six this season, but they haven’t entirely convinced us. They took their time grinding down SPAL, which doesn’t bode well for a clash with a Brescia outfit who are massively overperforming their xG Against score at the back. That’s brought back old fears for the visitors, who have been poor on the road for a long time now.

Bologna have kept only five clean sheets in their last 35 attempts, while they’ve lost 18 of their last 30 on the road. Recent history does suggest that visitors will continue their poor away record. Bologna have collected a win and a draw in Serie A this season – the last time they went unbeaten in their first three games of a season was back in 2002/03 (W2 D1).

Bologna have won only one of their last 11 Serie A away games in Lombardia (D1 L9): they had won two, drawn two and lost two of their previous six such matches. They are likely to struggle in the region once again, with their away form suggesting that they will come up short. They failed to win 17 of 19 trips last season, including all 10 meetings with the bottom half sides.

Bologna aren’t that convincing on the road, while they have a poor recent record against Brescia. We are going with the hosts on the Draw No Bet market given how poor Bologna have been on their travels. On top of that, Brescia have given two solid displays which show that they can live with top half sides, so there’s value in backing them to produce in this homecoming.

Brescia have shown their defensive strength in the opening weeks of the season, which suggests to us that they can shut down Bologna. The visitors come here having failed to score at five of the bottom seven last season so they may have a tough time breaking Brescia’s resolve. That has us backing another game with a single goal for the home side, as we are backing a 1-0 Brescia victory this weekend.