Serie A midweek: odds for all ten games

Serie A plays three nights of midweek football this week, and the card is unusually clear about who the market rates. Inter and Lazio share top spot on 22 points after eight rounds, Roma and Milan are two behind, and the bottom of the table already looks like a problem for four clubs. The prices below are the DraftKings lines carried in our fixtures feed, with the implied probability calculated from each home price before the bookmaker's margin.

Three nights, ten matches

The round runs from Tuesday to Thursday, with three games on the opening night and five on Wednesday. Roma host Cagliari, Sassuolo host Lazio and Torino host Como on Tuesday. Milan, Inter, Juventus and Napoli all play on Wednesday, and Fiorentina against Atalanta closes the card on Thursday. Every match except two carries a goal line of 2.5, which tells you what the market expects from the round as a whole.

Read the home column first. Roma at -320 is the shortest home price of the round, and only one other match has a side shorter than -200. The two widest away prices belong to Venezia at +600 and Genoa at +400, both against clubs with title ambitions and both a reflection of how badly those home teams have started.

Roma and Cagliari at the Olimpico

Roma have 18 points from eight games, with 19 goals scored and six conceded. That defensive record is the second-best in the division behind Lazio, and it is the reason the home price sits where it does. Cagliari have 13 points and have scored six goals in eight games, among the lowest totals in the league. A side that struggles to score against a side that rarely concedes is the definition of a short home price.

The goal line of 2.5 is the interesting part. Roma's matches have produced 25 goals in eight games, so the line is not a reflection of their season average. It is a reflection of Cagliari's: their eight matches have produced 15 goals in total, six scored and nine conceded. The market is pricing Roma's attack against Cagliari's caution, and the number follows.

Inter at Venezia: the widest gap on the card

Inter lead the table on 22 points with 23 goals scored, the best attacking record in Serie A. Venezia are bottom with three points, six goals scored and 17 conceded. Inter at -300 implies roughly 75 per cent, which sounds generous until you look at the goal line: 3.5, the highest on the card. The market is not just pricing a win, it is pricing a margin.

There is a reason for caution. Inter's three Champions League matches have been tight, and a midweek trip to a side fighting for its season is the classic place for a leading team to drop two points. The price says that will not happen. The fixture list says it might.

Napoli at Monza and Juventus at Genoa

Napoli sit tenth on 11 points, one of the season's clearest underperformances relative to expectation. Their price at Monza is -130, only a little shorter than Juventus at Genoa at -155, and both are the sort of number a bookmaker sets when it trusts the team more than the table. Monza have seven points and have conceded 18 goals in eight games. Genoa have seven points and have scored six.

Sassuolo against Lazio is the closest match on the card by price, with Lazio at +105 and Sassuolo at +225. Lazio are level with Inter on 22 points and have conceded five goals in eight games. That record against a mid-table side at +105 is the value question of the round, and it is the one where the market and the table disagree most.

Torino against Como is the other side of that question. Como are fifth on 17 points and have won two of their three Champions League matches, yet they travel at -155 to a side on 13 points. The market has decided that Como's season is real. Torino's home record is the reason the price is not shorter.

The table after eight rounds

Eight games is enough for the table to mean something and not enough for it to mean everything. Inter and Lazio on 22, Roma and Milan on 18, Como on 17: five clubs separated by five points, with the top two having played the same number of games. At the other end Venezia have three points and Parma, Fiorentina and Udinese have four each, so the bottom four are separated by a single point.

The midweek round matters more for the bottom than the top. A club on four points that loses twice in a week can be cut adrift before November, and the prices reflect that urgency: Fiorentina at +115 against Atalanta, Parma at +185 against Udinese, Frosinone at -155 against Lecce. Those are not the prices of teams playing without pressure.

There is one more number worth carrying into the week. Ten matches, and not one has a goal line above 3.5. A round priced for low scoring is a round where the first goal matters more than usual, and where the teams that score first will collect most of the points.

How to read the prices

Three things are worth saying about the numbers in the table, because they are easy to misread.

• American prices are not probabilities. Convert them before comparing: -300 is 75 per cent, +300 is 25 per cent.
• The three outcomes in any match add up to more than 100 per cent. The excess is the margin, and it is how the bookmaker earns.
• A short price is a statement about likelihood, not about quality. Venezia at +600 are not 600 times worse than Inter.

Our betting section explains the conversion in full, and the Serie A page carries the table these prices are set against. Nothing here is a tip. It is a record of what the market thinks before the round is played, and the round will have its own opinion.