Saturday’s Serie A action completes at the Stadio San Siro as out-of-form Milan take on injury-hit Benevento in a must-win affair. Both sides are in desperate need of points, albeit for different reasons.
The Rossoneri have worked so hard to return to the Champions League following a long seven-year absence, but a top-four finish may elude them after all. Meanwhile, the visitors’ recent drop-off in form that yielded just two points from their last five league games has seen them slip to the drop zone.
Milan vs Benevento Head-To-Head
The Serie A head-to-head record between these adversaries is perfectly balanced, with one victory for each side and a draw as neither team managed to win at home.
Following a 2-0 triumph at the Ciro Vigorito in January, Milan are aiming to post their first league double over the Campania outfit, having lost their only previous H2H at home by a narrow 1-0 scoreline.
Teams Recent Forms
Stefano Pioli’s men have gone from back-to-back Serie A wins over Parma and Genoa to two straight defeats to Sassuolo and Lazio, both of which saw them concede precisely two second-half goals. Milan have lost their rhythm of late, dropping outside the top-four territory, albeit they are level on points with fourth-placed Juventus.
Since the turn of the year, the Rossoneri have clinched just three wins in ten home Serie A outings, which puts them in 15th position in the Serie A home match standings in 2021. Coming off the back of the February international break, they have won just one of their six league fixtures at the San Siro (D2, L3), scoring under 1.5 goals on five occasions.
As ever, starting well will be a priority, especially considering Milan’s outstanding 94.44% win-ratio across Serie A games that saw them lead at half-time this season (W17, L1). The lone exception was a 2-1 defeat to Sassuolo in their most recent home league contest.
In the meantime, Benevento have gone winless in five Serie A matches on the trot (D2, L3) since stunning Juventus in Turin on Matchday 28. Gli Stregoni conceded 2+ goals four times across that five-game sequence, falling behind within the opening ten minutes of play in each of the last three.
Benevento’s disastrous run of form in 2021 has seen them claim just two triumphs in 18 Serie A games since the turn of the year (D7, L9), mustering up a miserly points-per-game average of 0.6 compared to 1.2 from the first half of the season.
Filippo Inzaghi’s players have reeled off a string of high-scoring Serie A fixtures of late as four of the last five have seen both teams score at least twice, three of which also featured 3+ first-half strikes.
Predicted Line-ups
MILAN (4-2-3-1): Gianluigi Donnarumma; Diogo Dalot, Fikayo Tomori, Simon Kjaer, Theo Hernandez; Franck Kessié, Sandro Tonali; Alexis Saelemaekers, Hakan Calhanoglu, Rafael Leao; Zlatan Ibrahimovic
BENEVENTO (3-5-2): Lorenzo Montipò; Luca Caldirola, Kamil Glik, Federico Barba; Gaetano Letizia; Fabio Depaoli, Pasquale Schiattarella, Artur Ionita, Perparim Hetemaj, Riccardo Improta; Gianluca Lapadula, Adolfo Gaich