Contenders coy on Italian Serie A title chances

The four teams leading the way in Serie A remained coy of their chances ahead of this weekend's matches. Leaders Juventus host Novara, who are in the bottom three, while third place AC Milan are at home to Siena. But the most intriguing match of the weekend sees second placed Udinese travel to fourth placed Lazio. Udinese are only behind Juve on goal difference while Lazio, who trail Milan by the same margin, are just two points behind that. Any one of the top four could end the weekend at the top of the table. Both Udinese and Lazio were involved in Europa League matches in midweek, although Lazio had one more day to rest and recover from their exertions. While most observers are surprised by both sides' positive starts to the season, the general consensus is that Udinese are the most likely to continue their run. But Lazio's French centre-back Mobido Diakite believes that their front pair of compatriot Djibril Cisse and Germany's Miroslav Klose make them competitive. "For a striker like Cisse goals are everything. He's missing those but against Lecce he won us the game with his assist for Klose," said Diakite. "When I was younger I used to watch (Klose's) matches at home and I used to say 'it's crazy how good he is'. "We'll approach Udinese as we do every match, they're a great team with great players but we don't think we're inferior." While one of those two at least will lose ground at the top, that's not expected to be the case with Juve and Milan, who both have what on paper appear easy home matches. If Juve avoid defeat they will take their unbeaten start to the season to 15 matches but goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon says previous experience shows it is still too early to start dreaming of winning the title. "It's risky talking about the title, leading the league is just something temporary that's lasted 14 games," said Buffon. "At this time of the season last year we were also close to the top but we didn't even qualify for Europe." Champions Milan have picked up impressively since a poor start in which they won only one of their first five matches. Since then, though, they've racked up seven wins and two draws and club captain Massimo Ambrossini insists they've proved they have the desire to go all the way again. He also denied that success-starved Juve want it more. "Juve don't have any more grit than Milan, they just have two more points in the standings," he said. "It's always difficult to win the title and you can't think it's possible to win a title without having challengers. "Juve are doing a lot to stay at the top and I have to congratulate them because they deserve to be top." While the main scudetto contenders are playing down their chances, Inter Milan centre-back Andrea Ranocchia has been talking up his team's. Inter had a disastrous start to their campaign but four wins in five has seen them climb up to seventh, although they are still 10 points off the summit. And Ranocchia is targeting two wins out of two before Christmas to stay in the hunt, starting with their trip to lowly Cesena. "These are two very important matches and it's fundamental that we win both to give continuity to our recent results," he said. "I still believe we can win the league but right now we're thinking about finishing the year well and then in 2012 we'll have a long fightback." Fixtures: Saturday (1945 GMT unless stated) Chievo v Cagliari (1700GMT), AC Milan v Siena, Fiorentina v Atalanta Sunday (1400 GMT unless stated) Catania v Palermo, Cesena v Inter Milan, Genoa v Bologna, Juventus v Novara, Parma v Lecce, Lazio v Udinese (1945 GMT), Napoli v Roma (1945)