Bologna vs Catania Preview: Lopez spells it out

Posted Sunday, February 06, 2011 by PA

Catania striker Maxi Lopez is expecting a tough afternoon when he and his team-mates travel to Bologna.

The Sicilians have endured difficulties away from home this season and head to the Renato Dall' Ara stadium still searching for their first win on their travels.

Diego Simeone's men have collected just four points of a possible 33 away from Catania while Bologna have lost just once at home this season - a 3-0 defeat to AC Milan on December 12.

"Bologna is a tough ground to play at," said Lopez. "The Rossoblu play well in general and have done really well at home.

"They have beaten Lazio and also held Inter Milan and Juventus to a draw.

"It will be a difficult game but then all matches in Serie A are challenging.

"Our objective this weekend is to make the most of our chances and try not to concede a goal.

"I think we have made some progress with this lately."

Catania, who remain winless in 2011, will have an added motivation to get a result at Bologna knowing that a defeat could see them drop to the bottom three.

Wednesday's 1-1 draw at Cesena left Catania 17th in the standings, just two points clear of the drop zone.

Catania have struggled in front of goal, scoring just once in their last three games.

"We need to be more aggressive," said Simeone, who replaced the sacked Marco Giampaolo last month. "We have to create more opportunities to score and we didn't do that at Cesena.

"We have to keep working on that."

Bologna, meanwhile, climbed to 14th after their midweek 1-1 draw at Udinese.

Alberto Malesani's men will be looking to increase their current five-point gap with the drop zone with victory against Catania.

The home fans will be hoping Marco Di Vaio can keep his goalscoring form, with the veteran striker having found the net in four of his team's last five games.

Di Vaio is the third leading scorer in Serie A with 14 goals, behind Udinese's Antonio Di Natale (15) and Napoli's Edinson Cavani (17).

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