AC Milan will renew their historic rivalry with Juventus as they host Max Allegri’s side in Saturday’s evening kick-off at San Siro.
Milan will be looking to bounce back from a difficult night at Stamford Bridge in midweek as they were well beaten on the night by Chelsea, while their last home league game was a 1-0 defeat to Napoli before the break.
The Rossoneri are still battling an injury crisis ahead of welcoming Juve but as Stefano Pioli explained in his pre-match press conference, there is not the time for excuses and a response is needed.
Game date: Saturday, 8 October
Kick-off time: 18:00 (CEST)
Venue: San Siro
Referee: Orsato (VAR: Chiffi)
Team news
A sold out San Siro will see two of Serie A’s most decorated clubs go head to head, and the objective will be bouncing back after the recent damaging defeats that came either side of a dramatic late win at Empoli.
There are a number of players that Pioli cannot call upon at the moment as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alessandro Florenzi, Davide Calabria and Alexis Saelemaekers are out until after the world cup while Simon Kjaer, Mike Maignan and Junior Messias are also missing.
However, there is a big boost to report as Theo Hernandez will be back in the starting line-up for Milan, with the latest reports suggesting that Sergino Dest, Pierre Kalulu and Fikayo Tomori will complete the back four in front of Ciprian Tatarusanu.
Ismael Bennacer and Sandro Tonali are expected to keep their places in the double pivot from the Chelsea defeat with Rade Krunic tipped to remain on the right wing and Rafael Leao on the left wing.
Charles De Ketelaere – who is looking for his first goal as a Milan player – should be the playmaker behind Olivier Giroud, who will continue to work overtime with Ante Rebic and Divock Origi being eased back after a length lay-off.
Updated Probable Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Tatarusanu; Kalulu, Gabbia, Tomori, Hernandez; Bennacer, Tonali; Krunic, Diaz, Leao; Giroud.
The opponents
Juventus had a statement summer transfer window as they recruited the likes of Angel Di Maria and Leandro Paredes from PSG, Paul Pogba from Manchester United, Bremer from Torino, Filip Kostic from Eintracht Frankfurt and Arkadiusz Milik from Marseille.
However, it came at the expense of seeing Giorgio Chiellini finally leave, Matthijs De Ligt head to Bayern Munich, Paulo Dybala depart on a free, Denis Zakaria join Chelsea and Alvaro Morata’s loan end.
Their season has been very much a mixed bag so far as they sit seventh in the Serie A table with three wins, four draws and a defeat from eight games. Their last two results tell a story, with a 1-0 loss to Monza followed up by a 3-0 victory over Bologna last weekend.
Meanwhile, in the Champions League things have not gone to plan with defeats against Paris Saint-Germain and Benfica leaving them four points off second spot in their group.
In terms of selection news, there has been some doubts surrounding whether Milik will be fit enough to partner up with Dusan Vlahovic in a front two, but it seems as though he will be available.
Allegri brought Di Maria back into the fold during Juve’s midweek win against Maccabi Haifa after he came back from injury and served a suspension during the win over Bologna, but Paul Pogba and Federico Chiesa remain out as does Mattia De Sciglio.
Probable Juventus XI (4-4-2): Szczesny; Danilo, Bonucci, Bremer, Alex Sandro; McKennie, Paredes, Rabiot, Kostic; Vlahovic, Milik.
Head to head
Milan have played a total of 174 Serie A games against Juventus in their history, with Inter the only team they have faced more (177 times). In that run, the Rossoneri have won 51, with 56 draws and 67 wins in favour of the Bianconeri.
Last season saw Milan finish higher than Juve for the second straight campaign, but they did not manage to beat them as a boring 0-0 draw at San Siro was preceded by a 1-1 draw at the Allianz Stadium in the first fixture, in which Ante Rebic scored a second half equaliser.
The season before that saw one win each in the league as Juventus took advantage of an injury crisis that saw Milan start Calabria in midfield, Castillejo and Hauge as wingers and Leao up front, emerging 3-1 winners. In Turin, Brahim Diaz, Rebic and Tomori netted in a huge 3-0 win.
Match facts…
➤ Milan are the side against which Juventus have drawn (56) and won (51) the most Serie A matches: they have won 67 of their 174 meetings against the Rossoneri.
➤ Milan and Juventus drew both of their Serie A matches last season, only twice in their history have they drawn at least three games in a row in the competition: between 1972 and 1973 (four) and between 1938 and 1939 (four).
➤ Milan have gone unbeaten in four of their last five Serie A meetings against Juventus (W2 D2) after having lost 13 of the previous 14 (W1).
➤ Juventus have won six of their last nine Serie A meetings against Milan at the Meazza Stadium (D1 L2), scoring twice the number of goals that they have conceded in the process (14 vs 7).
➤ Milan (two) and Juventus (four) are two of the three sides to have lost the fewest Serie A matches in 2022, alongside Napoli (three), considering the teams to have played both seasons in
the process.
➤ After having won six successive Serie A home matches, Milan lost their last game at the San Siro Stadium; under Stefano Pioli, they have never lost two such games in a row (the last time was back in September 2019, under Marco Giampaolo).
➤ Juventus have picked up two points in three Serie A away matches this season (D2 L1): in the previous 40 Serie A campaigns, only in 1993/94 have they failed to win each of their first four such games in a single season.
➤ Since he joined Milan in 2019/20, Ante Rebic has scored four goals against Juventus in all competitions, no other player has scored more against them in the period (also four Giovanni
Simeone and Ruslan Malinovskyi).
➤ Rafael Leão has been involved in the most Serie A goals in 2022 (22: 11 goals + 11 assists) – since 2004/05, only two AC Milan players have had a hand in more league goals in a single calendar year: Kaká in 2008 (27: 15+12) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2020 (26: 20+6).
➤ This match will see two of the three players with the best mins/goals ratio in Serie A this season (min. 2 goals): Ante Rebic (one goal every 49 on average) and Arkadiusz Milik (one goal every 78) – the other one is Beto (one every 66 minutes).
➤ Only at the Mapei Stadium (four) has Dusan Vlahovic played more Serie A matches without finding the net than at the Meazza (three matches).
Ones to watch
As mentioned above, Rebic could be a very big weapon off the bench against Allegri’s side given he already has four goals against Juventus since joining Milan, but the main attacking threat will as always come from Leao as he hopes for another big performance in a big game.
Tonali and Bennacer simply must improve in the double pivot after being bullied in midweek and the midfield battle could be key, and then of course Dest and Krunic have to find a way to function better on the right flank or it could be a long night.
For the away side there is no doubting Vlahovic is the talisman and the main threat, with his five goals already this season backed up by the fact he downed Milan while with Fiorentina in the first half of last season, scoring a brace.
How the two centre-backs perform will be interesting to watch too, given that Milan were heavily linked with Gleison Bremer over the summer and Leonardo Bonucci was of course the captain in 2017-18.
Prediction
As much as we would love to predict a comfortable home win in this game and a big bounce-back victory, it feels as though Allegri’s side will set up to frustrate and block the left flank which could make things difficult, while looking for the counter through the power of Vlahovic. This one really could go any way, we just hope for an entertaining spectacle.
AC Milan 1-1 Juventus
