Lazio vs AC Milan. Prediction and Preview. Probable Lineups, Team News, Stats, and more

SS Lazio will host AC Milan in the Serie A 27th round match at the Olimpico Stadium. The fixture will take place on Saturday, March 2, beginning at 01:15 IST.

Parimatch News will tell you everything you need to know ahead of the upcoming match.

Lazio News & Current Form:

This season has been absolutely ambiguous for the Romans. At first there were hopes for a continuation of last year’s story, but the first failures made them wary. In the fall, after the swings in the form of wins and losses, it became clear that such success may not be repeated this season. 

The competition in Serie A is extremely high, and if they can also perform well at the level of the leading clubs in Europe, then the Romans deserve only praise. At the same time, the squad is definitely not the strongest in the league.

They rely heavily on veterans, who can’t always get the job done. In addition, Lazio are a team of mood. If the game goes well, they can sweep away any opponent, but if not, they are suddenly showing a performance worthy of a mid-table team. 

Lazio approached the start of the season with the goal of qualifying for the UEFA Champions League, but failed in the first rounds. Losing precious points at the start, the Eagles allowed their rivals to get away, and despite the fact that closer to the finish of the first round they managed to get closer to the top seven, the Romans have minimal chances to finish in the top four.

At the same time, in theory, fifth place could allow Lazio to play in the UCL qualification – they still have a chance here. The Romans are still eighth in the table, but they are six points behind fifth-placed Atalanta BC, with SSC Napoli, who also have 40 points, seriously pushing them from the bottom. In the top ten, only Torino FC (25) scored less than Sarri’s team (32), and the team lost 10 times – the most in the top half of the table.

In the match against ACF Fiorentina, a cautious first-half performance, counting on a mistake by the hosts, was not successful (2:1). Just before the break, Luis Alberto scored the only goal for his team. The bad thing is that his shot on goal remained the only shot on goal for the entire match against the Violas. 

Luis Alberto – author of the goal for SS Lazio in a game against ACF Fiorentina

Coach Sarri justified himself with injuries and illnesses in the squad, said that three or four played sick and in general about the killer calendar. But he also eventually admitted the obvious – a disappointing game. Player Alberto says that the team takes a step forward, but then two steps back. At the same time Lazio with about the same goal difference managed to win away against Torino (0:2).

In general, for the last 5 matches in all tournaments Lazio won 3 times and lost twice, during this period the Eagles scored 8 goals with 5 goals conceded.

Speaking of the coach, he will most likely leave the position in the summer. Maurizio Sarri had another quarrel with Claudio Lotito. He accused the management of bad transfers, saying that based on the strength of the squad, the team should not go to the Champions League anyways. To which the club president replied:

“Stop looking for excuses! The reason for the failure in Florence is not transfers.”

The Romans are performing well in the current Champions League campaign. In the fall took second place in the group with Atletico de Madrid, Feyenoord Rotterdam and Celtic FC. And in the first 1/8 finals they beat FC Bayern Munich at home (1:0), Sarri’s team looked great and never once gave the opponent the opportunity to hit the goalpost. In the Coppa Italia, Lazio have so far reached the semifinals, beating Genoa CFC (1:0) and AS Roma (1:0).

But in terms of personnel, Sarri’s team has no catastrophic losses. Only Patric Gabarron and Nicolo Rovella will miss the next round due to injuries, and even then – both players have injuries that could allow them in theory to be in the application with the approval of the club doctors. At the same time, Elseid Hysaj managed to recover from his minor injury in a very short period of time, while Mario Gila served his suspension for his red card against Torino.

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AC Milan News & Current Form: 

Milan were seen as one of Inter’s main pursuers in the Italian championship not so long ago, but after the beginning of the year the Black and Blues turned on the turbo mode and left their countrymen far behind them. 

Before the season, the Rossoneri have strengthened their squad quite well. At least Stefano Pioli had no reason to complain about the lack of rotation, even during injuries. However, the number of injuries to players during this season was much less than in the previous season. 

On the left flank, Rafael Leao sometimes performs magic tricks and is capable of single-handedly deciding the outcome of any match. On the attacking end, Olivier Giroud shows that age is not a hindrance to scoring goals. 

Olivier Giroud remains AC Milan’s one of the top scorers for a long time despite his age

Christian Pulisic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are very useful, the second one has become the organizer of many attacks, the latter has been scoring often lately. One can also talk a lot about the game of world champion Theo Hernandez and his scorching performance. So what does the team lack?

The same stability as last year. Unfortunately, the Rossoneri depend a lot on the mood of their stars. If the game is going on, everything is fine. But if you play harshly against Leao a couple or three times, you won’t get that kind of zeal from the midfielder. Hernandez is prone to emotions, Luka Jovic can get a red card on the spot. The result of all these errors is a loss of points. 

Milan clearly expected to compete for the Scudetto this season and were generally very good at the start of the season, but they still made a few mistakes. Juventus and FC Inter Milan took advantage of them skillfully, and while Stefano Pioli’s team has almost caught up with the Old Lady, it is hardly worth dreaming about ousting the Black and Blues from the podium.

By the start of the 27th round Milan are in third place in the table with 53 points and are already 16 points behind the leader. Bologna FC are not much of a threat at the bottom – they are five points behind. Having drawn 1:1 with Atalanta in the last round, Milan failed to win the second match in a row.

However, the management already recognizes that the Scudetto is lost. Stefano Pioli bluntly stated this today at the pre-match press conference. And the only chance for the trophy remains in the UEFA Europa League, in which to play on Thursday in the ⅛ final against SK Slavia Praha after wins over Stade Rennais FC (3:0, 2:3).

The Rossoneri still recently owned a 9-match winless streak in the league with 7 wins with 2 draws. Then Pioli said that his wards are quite capable of fighting with Juventus FC for the second position.

But then Milan lost to AC Monza (2:4) and also drew with Atalanta (1:1) despite 69% possession and 20 shots on goal at the San Siro. Now the mood is very different for the Black and Reds. They dream of at least retaining their 3rd place. Pioli’s future is most likely not linked with the club, and already this creates an unpleasant situation.

Milan score a lot (50) – only Inter have scored more often in Serie A (63). At the same time, the Rossoneri have conceded almost an order of magnitude more goals (32) than their nearest rival Atalanta (24). It is worth noting that the team scored 24 points out of a possible 39 on the foreign field in Serie A – this is the 3rd result in away matches. 

The main sniper of the team is Olivier Giroud. The 37-year-old veteran has scored 12 goals – however, four of them were scored from the spot. At the same time, Giroud made eight assists – the evergreen Frenchman is also the best assist man for the Rossoneri.

Milan lost three men. Two are injured – Tommaso Pobega and Mattia Caldara. And Luka Jovic is unavailable due to suspension.

Lazio form guide: L-W-W-L-W-L

AC Milan form guide: W-W-W-L-L-D

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Lazio vs AC Milan Head-To-Head Record:

• January 24, 2023: Lazio 4 – 0 AC Milan (Serie A);
• May 6, 2023: AC Milan 2 – 0 Lazio (Serie A);
• September 30, 2023: AC Milan 2 – 0 Lazio (Serie A).

Lazio vs AC Milan Predicted XI:

Lazio’s possible starting lineup (4-3-3): Provedel, Lazzari, Casale, Romagnoli, Hysaj; Guendouzi, Cataldi, Luis Alberto; Isaksen, Immobile, Felipe Anderson.

AC Milan’s possible starting lineup (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Florenzi, Thiaw, Gabbia, Hernandez; Reijnders, Bennacer, Loftus-Cheek; Pulisic, Giroud, Leao.

Statistical preview of the match Lazio vs AC Milan:

• Lazio’s First XI average age is 29.5 years, Milan’s First XI average age is 28.0 years.
• The total value of Lazio’s squad is 241 mln euros, while the total of AC Milan comes up to 524 mln euros.
• Marco di Bello has been appointed as the center referee. The referee has already served 13 games this season, showing an average of 3 Yellow Cards and also whistles 22 fouls per game. 

• AC Milan have beaten Lazio in 4 of their last 5 head-to-head meetings.
• In the last 5 matches on their home field Lazio lost only 1 time.
• In the last 3 matches Milan conceded less than 3 goals in only 1 match.
• Lazio won the Italian championship twice in 1973-1974 and 1999-2000 seasons, while Milan are the winners of 19 Italian championships, the last to date the team has won in the season 2021-2022.
• Lazio have not conceded a goal in only one of their last 5 Serie A fixtures.
• It is also worth noting that Pioli’s men have scored more than 1.5 goals in each of their eight away matches in the Italian league, which further emphasizes their attacking power.

What has been said before the match:

Gaffer of AC Milan Stefano Pioli about the conclusions drawn from past meeting ahead of meeting with Lazio:

“We want to produce the same performance as last week whilst aiming for a different result. We analyzed the positives after Atalanta but also tried to understand why we couldn’t score one more than them because we had the chance to. We need to be more cynical.”

“Lazio are a team with great quality that comes off the back of an unsatisfactory performance. They will be motivated but can also be thrown off by playing with intensity. The game against Slavia Praha will be very important, we are studying them but are fully focused on Lazio. Then we will have an almost full week, there won’t be changes in Rome in order to rest players. I believe that both sides will try to play with different ideas. The midfield battles will be very important.”

“I think that the top spot in the league is decided, Inter are recording incredible numbers as Napoli did last year. 21 April is too far away. We have a big game ahead of us and there are various goals to meet before we think about the derby. During the international break, we will see what the season as a whole could look like.”

“We need to improve our away stats, this is a clear goal. We have always been a side that tries to play the game regardless, and we’ll need to do this against Lazio who know how to dribble well. We have a strategy, it will be necessary to advance it with absolute mental consistency.”

Lazio vs AC Milan Prediction:

Both teams have been performing unimpressively lately. Still, Milan are in a much better position than Lazio if we look at the bigger picture of the season, they hold third place in the Serie A standings against the Romans’ eighth place (13 points difference). At the same time, the Sky Blue are clearly more concerned about their quest in the UEFA Champions League, where they suddenly beat Bayern Munich in the first game, and now they need to hold on to their lead and the chances of doing so are decent, given the crisis in the ranks of Thomas Tuchel.

The Red-Blacks are also set to play in the UEFA Europa League next week, but it will be two days later, and Slavia Prague hardly requires the same preparation as Munich. Stefano Pioli will put out the most competitive line-up possible for this game. That said, the Devils are the third best team in Serie A in terms of points gained in away games (1.85 per match). The head-to-head statistics are in favor of the visitors as well, as they have won five of their last six matches. And the rivalry has been very eventful in recent times: in the previous ten head-to-head encounters, the opponents have totalled 31 goals (3.10 per game on average), with 70% of those encounters having seen more than 2.5 goals. The Devils individually have netted an average of 2 goals per game in their last six face-offs against the Biancocelesti. We are expecting a similar scenario now, especially due to the added motivation of Stefano Pioli to answer the fans’ criticism. 

After the draw with Atalanta, team supporters seemed to be skeptical of Pioli’s tactical approach, rather than the performance of the squad. They ridiculed the coach, who, in their opinion, played a 5-0-5 formation. The coach himself rightly replied that his team played great – they lacked just one more goal. That is, the problem was poor finishing. In Rome, Stefano and company will try to work on their mistakes. We believe in the victory of guests with at least 2 goals scored by Rafael Leao and his teammates, as they, despite all the instability, show a much more advanced football than recessionary Lazio. 

Parimatch News staff prediction:

We say: Milan will win with an individual total over 1.5 – Yes.

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