Parma - Cagliari preview - Santacroce: Parma are improving

Stricken Parma can simply not afford to let this weekend's golden opportunity pass them by.

The Ducale club are on the rocks, with 12 defeats from their 14 Serie A games - culminating in last Sunday's 2-1 home loss to Lazio - leaving them eight points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table.

To make matters worse, Parma have this week been deducted one point by the Italian Football Federation for failing to pay player wages dating back to November 2013.

President Tommaso Ghirardi is now preparing to abandon ship after sanctioning the sale of the Emilia-Romagna outfit to a Russian-Cypriot conglomerate, who are set to take over on December 16.

It remains to be seen whether the new owners can make the changes that will steer Parma back into safe waters, but a chance to make immediate repairs presents itself on Sunday.

The next visitors to the Stadio Ennio Tardini are Cagliari, who are without a win in six games and are second only to Parma when it comes to the number of goals conceded this season.

Parma defender Fabiano Santacroce feels recent performances have revealed shoots of progress and expects the Gialloblu to muster the self-belief they need to see off the Sardinians.

He told fcparma.com: "We are going into this game on the back of a couple of matches where we have played well. The whole team is starting to play well.

"The results have not gone our way, that's true, so we just need to start learning from all our ups and downs and mistakes and keep on improving.

"No one likes losing, but our performances have given us courage and compound our knowledge that we can do well. Playing well is the best way to guarantee good results."

Left-back Massimo Gobbi is suspended while Jonathan Biabiany, Mattia Cassani, Massimo Coda and Gabriel Paletta are all on the treatment table.

Cagliari, meanwhile, are missing the injured trio of Simone Colombi, Sebastian Eriksson and Marco Sau. Colombian striker Victor Ibarbo is banned.

The Isolani dropped into the bottom three following Monday night's home defeat to Chievo and head coach Zdenek Zeman hopes his team can snap out of the losing mentality as soon as possible.

"Apart from the game at Roma (2-0 loss), we have always tried to play our football," he told La Repubblica Sport.

"But on this occasion we failed to build any moves or do anything at all in the midfield or in attack.

"It's been difficult but I hope it is only a temporary problem because this team has real quality and potential."